Summer sucks

Yeah yeah, I know that people are going to be whipping off angry comments before they get past the title of this because everyone in saskatchewan worships summer and thinks it's the greatest. But not I.

Summer is pretty much the worst ever, I don't understand what people find so wonderful about a few months of being sweaty and dusty. (which makes for a nice greasy mixture on every inch of exposed skin) I think I'm also more adversely affected because of the lack of air conditioning in my car. Although I am lucky enough to have centreal air at home.. praise Jesus.

One thing that I WOULD love about summer would be the lovely summer nights, except for the fact that filthy west nile ridden mosquitos ruin any chance of enjoying even a minute or two of that, unless you'd like to stink yourself up with some mosquito spray, which I find doesn't work anyway so you might as well be spraying yourself with a nice layer of urine, since it would do about the same for you, but probably stink less. And during the day you have to grease yourself up with sunscreen if you want to be outside, or else run the risk of dying of skin cancer. (Especially people like me who are cursed with goth sydrome, dark hair and "you-can't-be-that-pale-without-having-some-chronic-disease" skin.

Also, is there really that much more to look forward to in the summer? There aren't really any of the good holidays, and what else do we get here? The fair? I know the thrill of riding on low-end crappy rides, eating 10 dollar fries, watching kids puke and middle aged people stumble drunk outside the beer gardens is great, and maybe you'll even get the fun of being offered some weed by an extra-greasy carny. But we could all get similar experiences at any family reunion with uncle bob's helicopter rides, and then later uncle bob getting drunk, puking and offering us some weed. And the fries would be free.

I'll admit, there are some days to be enjoyed, but as a whole, I find times like late spring, fall and early winter far more appealing than the dirty half dressed sweatfest that is summer.

I have to go now, as my mosquito bites have driven me over the edge... only another 2 months to go..

And now... a story about hammering....

I remember I was hammering on a fence in the backyard when Dad approached. He was carrying a letter or something in his hand, and he looked worried.I continued to hammer as he came toward me. "Son," he said, "why are you hammering on that fence? It already has plenty of nails in it.""Oh, I'm not using nails," I replied. "I'm just hammering." With that, I returned to my hammering.

Dad asked me to stop hammering, as he had some news. I did stop hammering, but first I got a couple more hammers in, and this seemed to make Dad mad. "I said, stop hammering!" he yelled.I think he felt bad for yelling at me, especially since it looked like he had bad news. "Look," he said, "you can hammer later, but first--"Well, I didn't even wait to hear the rest. As soon as I heard "You can hammer," that's what I started doing. Hammering away, happy as an old hammer dog. Dad tried to physically stop me from hammering by inserting a small log of some sort between my hammer and the fence. But I just kept on hammering, 'cause that's the way I am when I get that hammer going. Then, he just grabbed my arm and and made me stop."I'm afraid I have some news for you," he said.I swear, what I did next was not hammering. I was just letting the hammer swing lazily at arm's length, and maybe it tapped the fence once or twice, but that's all. That apparently didn't make any difference whatsoever to Dad, because he just grabbed my hammer out of my hand and flung it across the field. And when I saw my hammer flying helplessly through the air like that I just couldn't take it. I burst out crying, I admit it. And I ran to the house, as fast as my legs could take me."Son, come back!" yelled Dad. "What about your hammer?!"But I could not have cared less about hammering at that point. I ran into the house and flung myself onto my bed, pounding the bed with my fists.

I pounded and pounded, until finally, behind me, I heard a voice. "As long as you're pounding, why not use this?" I turned, and it was Dad, holding a brand-new solid-gold hammer. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and ran to Dad's outstretched arms. But suddenly, he jumped out of the way, and I went sailing through the second-story window behind him.Whenever I hear about a kid getting in trouble with the drugs, I like to tell him this story.

Some good Deep Thoughts Just for You

"The first thing was, I learned to forgive myself. Then I told myself, 'Go ahead, do whatever you want, it's ok by me.'" Jack Handey

I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, Yahoo!, I'd have all my money back. Jack Handey

Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call them "impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what, can't we all be brothers? Jack Handey

Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and that's why so is mankind. Jack Handey

I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I'd just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about doing that anyway. Jack Handey

Broken promises don't upset me. I just think, why did they believe me? Jack Handey

If you ever crawl inside an old hollow log and go to sleep, and while you're in there some guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on a truck and take it to another city, boy, I don't know what to tell you. Jack Handey

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man. Jack Handey

(this one is a personal favorite....)
To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" you can say, "Sorry, got these sacks." Jack Handey

Ambition is like a frog sitting on a Venus Flytrap. The flytrap can bite and bite, but it won't bother the frog because it only has little tiny plant teeth. But some other stuff could happen and it could be like ambition. Jack Handey

Top 5 reasons why I'm Ridiculous

Here goes...

5) I Like candy and Cartoons way more than the average 21 year old female college student:
I thought these things were supposed to go down the priority list with age, and instead I should be concerned about other things, important things, grown up things. But no, candy and cartoons remain way up there. Along with baby animals and coloring with crayons

4) I overexplain EVERYTHING
I can't just say something and be done with it. Esspecially if I'm nervous or feel like I'm not getting my point across, I will beat any and every issue to death five times over until there's nothing left but a steaming pile of crazy nonsense.

3) I'm always late
I am getting better at this one.. but still. I'm late a lot, regardless of time frame or schedule or whatever circumstance, I will find a way to get held up and not get there on time. I wish this were a more endearing quality.

2) I choke in awkward situations
Put me in an awkward situation, now think of the worst thing that I could say/do in this situation. I guarantee you I will do/say that very thing 98 percent of the time. It's like a panic button gets pushed in my head and autopilot kicks in. Unfortunately the goal of my autopilot seems to be to make any situation go from bad to worse as quickly and efficiently as possible, not sparing any of the embarassment or stupidity on my part.

AND FINALLY....

1) I'm spoiled rotten
Maybe it's because I have such great friends that I have high expectations for people, but I expect a lot and I guess I can be a brat when those expectations aren't met. Wow, writing this one hurts my pride. But it's the truth

I guess I'm just ridiculous

This devo sucks

June 5/05
Hard lessons....

Recently I really disappointed someone I love, as recently as tonight in fact. Seriously, words cannot describe how terrible I feel right now, I actually forgot what it was like to feel this bad. And the worst part is that I had no idea what was going on until it was too late. This thought struck me, that it’s amazing how much damage you can do by doing nothing, that I can hurt people more not by my actions but by my lack of action. It makes me wonder how much I do that in my life. It’s like I get so caught up in anything and everything else, caught up with life, and I don’t even stop to look at the people around me and see what’s going on, stop and notice, not to pacify or gratify or fix people, but just to care. Care about what they’re going through, what they want, what they need, what they can’t do for themselves but don’t know how to ask for it from someone else.
As much as this feeling sucks, I’m thankful for this wakeup call. Where are my priorities? If you asked me I would tell you Jesus is my priority, my friends and family are my priority, and I’m sure you’d all say the same, but a lot of the time our actions (or lack of action…) prove differently. God showed me with this tonight that my priorities are not where I thought they were, and are not where they need to be, and because of that on my part, people in my life are caused pain. It’s inexplicably humbling and even more so, heartbreaking. The most important things in Jesus life were the Father, and people. There was really nothing else. And so if I honestly stop and look at my life and my actions and those two things don’t take first priority, then there definitely needs to be a change… If I love the people in my life, I’ll care about them, think about them, just notice them for heaven’s sake. Issues in life, work, the future, health, church, money, social statuses, whatever else you can think of… it’s all crap. It’s all just B.S. Nothing but pride…And it shouldn’t run my life.
I honestly don’t know what else to say about this, I’m just wrecked to the core… And to those of you feeling the pain from the lack of “noticing” or otherwise in your relationships, let me be the first to say I’m sorry. In the next little while here I’m going to take some time to personally appreciate people individually, but until then, accept my apologies and know that I love you. I’m sorry if you’ve ever felt forgotten or past by, and for me personally, after tonight I will never let it happen again.

So here’s the challenge I guess… Pull your head out of the proverbial butt of “your busy life and look around. People need you, need your attention, need your love, need you to listen, need you to just freakin notice..
So do it, and don’t wait, do it now.

Being honest

May 24/05

Hey guys,
I trust that your summer is going well, in good old Estevan things are pretty much as usual, which is reassuring… and annoying, all at the same time. J Anyway, I had no idea what I was going to write about for this devo cuz there’s been so much to think about lately. There’s been emotional meetings, theological debates with friends and some amazing sermons, oh the madness. I feel like there’s so much to work on and so much to be done, a zillion areas where I need to improve, but God brought up something to me that was pretty basic but so important.

I have come to really appreciate honest people. Real, true honesty is pretty hard to come by. During my time in the Philippines I really came to value just being honest in every area in life. Honest about how I’m feeling or what I think, honest about what’s really going on in life and seeing things for how they really are, and honesty in it’s entirety, rather than in selective bits and pieces. This was one area where I thought I was doing pretty good, but God brought to my mind areas where I still am not completely honest all the time, with Him, myself, or others. He usually jokes around with me when He brings stuff up, but this time He gave it to me pretty straight, which makes me realize even more what an important thing honesty is in life, cuz He was pretty serious. So ANYWAY… I want to keep this short,… I think this is something that’s relevant to all of us. So here’s my challenge for you and me. Let’s take the first step of being honest with ourselves about what areas we’re not being totally honest in, and the step of asking God what He thinks. We’ve all got areas where we know we need to be more truthful. AND THEN, go ahead and be honest, whether it’s being more honest with the people in your life, being more honest about what you’re thinking and feeling or who you are, or whatever else, I could go on. Even if it’s scary or embarrassing or someone else doesn’t like it, it’s definitely worth it to be able to know that by being real you’re proving your love and respect for Jesus, yourself and the people in your life. I’m a little nervous cuz being real is freaky sometimes, but I’ll let ya know how it goes. J
Luke 16:10 and 4:25 are simple verses but rocked me pretty good.
God Bless and Take care

Ok, so I still haven't had anything worthwhile to put on this site.. or rather have been to lazy to do creative stuff. I send a devo letter to some people and so I think I'm gonna start posting those on here and then whenever I think of something funny ( or something at least I think is funny..) or relevent in some way, I'll also post it here.. ok, good times then..
I'm gonna post my last couple of devos, in particular the one from tonite, even though it sucks... cuz it's important to me. What else can I write about today... today was ok, then it was really, really crappy, then I realized some things, then it was still crappy but at least not a complete waste of time... wow my stories are not good tonite. Guess I'll be done then. ;)