Valentine’s Day February 24, 2009

Despite my normally upbeat personality, I was once among those who referred to Valentine’s Day as Singles’ Awareness Day (acronym: SAD) with a grouchy face. Don’t get me wrong – the day has a few of my favorite things: the color pink, lots of candy, snuggly little bears, more pink, and, yes, more candy. Now, however, I think Valentine’s Day is pretty fantastic. And Valentine’s Day ’09 might be the best one yet.

I rushed home from work on Friday the 13th (scary, I know!) and got ready, and we drove downtown. We went to dinner at Reata (yes, we had reservations, and yes, we used valet parking). Dinner was fabulous. We had their beef tenderloin tamales as an appetizer, I had chicken chile rellenos, and Lance had chicken fried steak. And of course, I had crème brulee, and Lance had cheesecake. (If you know either of us very well, those dessert choices are not at all surprising.) Unfortunately, I have no pictures from dinner because I left my camera in Lance’s boot in the truck. Sad day. Anyway, dinner was great, and Lance and I had a great time talking… about nothing really. We discussed the buffalo head on the wall in the restaurant and the style of Fort Worth and our favorite foods at Reata… It’s fun to talk about things that don’t involve church or money or taxes or other things that can be stressors.

After dinner, we get in the truck, and Lance goes, “Well, so I came over here earlier today.” I was like, “Over where?” “I came to downtown.” (I was kind of offended. I work there. Why did he not come say hi?) So then he says, “I came and checked us into our hotel and our parking taken care of and all of that.” (Hooray!) THEN he says, “If I have a surprise about our room, do you want me to tell you or do you want to be surprised?” (What?!) I really don’t do so great with surprises, so I was told him to KIND OF tell me. He said that when he went to check in at the front desk, the girl goes, “Oh, so you know Marcus!” Lance told her that he didn’t know who she was talking about… and she goes, “Oh, that’s weird… because he gave you a free room upgrade!” So Marcus and I went to high school together, and I facebooked him because I saw pictures of him at the Omni, and I just said, “Hey! I’m going there on Friday!” Anyway, he is the manager there, and he gave us this free room upgrade! Super! So Lance goes, “Okay, I won’t tell you about the room… but there are two TVs. That’s all I’ll say.” We get to the hotel and go up to our room… and wow. It was just beautiful. I DO have pictures of it!

Two rooms… Two TVs… Two bathrooms! Holy cow!

   

The Omni is just beautiful. It’s very Texas chic. Lots of rustic-looking furniture with high-gloss veneer and incredible architecture. It’s really cool. I made Lance take lots of pictures because we didn’t have my camera at dinner, and somehow this evens it out.

      

We walked all around the hotel, hung out in the sports bar for a little bit, and just generally enjoyed having a night to do nothing. Saturday morning, we got up, and I took a shower – the coldest shower evar. I do NOT like cold showers. In fact, when we had water heater issues, I made Lance take me to Jason and Cori’s to shower because I refused to take even one shower without a water heater. Anyway, so it cold, which made me unhappy. I mean, it’s great that the hotel was gorgeous, but you gotta have hot water! I get out of the shower and call down to the front desk. Well, it turns out that the city hit a water main doing construction around the outside of the hotel, and they had just turned the water back ON, so it wasn’t hot yet. I wasn’t mad after that. You can’t control when someone else messes things up. We went downstairs to the lobby for breakfast (they have a full Starbucks in the lobby) and ran into my friend Marcus! So that was super cool – I got to introduce him to Lance and say thanks and all. He asked if we had cold water, and I said we did but no big deal, and then he goes, “Well, let me get your breakfast at Starbucks. It’s the least I can do.” HOORAY! So we had a lovely little breakfast at Starbucks and then headed home. It was so wonderful to have a getaway only 20 minutes from home. We had the best time.

Turns out that I like Valentine’s Day… and I sure do love that husband of mine.

Turbo update February 20, 2009

This has been a crazy week.  In fact, calling it a crazy week doesn’t begin to do it justice.  Anyway, that’s my reason for being so lax in updating my blog lately.  Super-fast updates with in-depth updates to follow soon… or soonish…:

 

1. Lance and I had a fabulous Valentine’s Day.  Dinner at Reata and staying at the Omni – perfection!  AND it turns out I know the manager of the Omni from high school, so he gave us an upgrade to a suite!  Pictures of said fancy date/fancy room(s) coming soon.
2. My job is going really well… and I have been SO busy this week that I haven’t even had time to update my blog.  I love that.  It makes the day go by so fast.
3. We are leaving as soon as I get off work to go on the True Love Waits retreat.  I’m excited.  And I’m tired.  We’ll see how those two adjectives battle it out this weekend.
4. My allergies are awful waffle right now.  My nose is like the one on the little claymation commercial where the nose hides in the kid’s face and the semi-British voice says, “A nose in need deserves Puffs indeed.”  Yeah.  That’s me.  I deserve Puffs indeed.
5. I had a fabulous dinner with my friend Ragan last night.  There are few things greater in the world than catching up with a friend.  It was just wonderful.
6. We are about to start LTC practices… you know, in case I was looking for something to do with all of that free time I have on my hands…
7. A lot of my friends are getting together for Sing Song in Abilene this weekend, and I am SO sad that I won’t get to go see them since I’ll be up at Texoma.  This is why I need a jet.  Or a Pegasus.  Probably a Pegasus.  A jet would just be silly.
8. My mom’s birthday is Monday.  Happy birthday, Mom!  (if you read this… I really don’t know if you do or not…)
9. I laid out all of my clothes and bedding for the retreat on our bed this morning and didn’t pack a thing.  Lance told me he’d take care of it.  I’m a little nervous for both of us.

 

This is probably the kind of very brief update that my dad prefers… but I promise I’ll write more at some point.  Until then, keep us in your prayers this weekend!

Quarter-Life Crisis (you’re so right, Kenz!) February 10, 2009

My friend McKenzie coined the phrase “quarter-life crisis” to describe this weird place in life that we are in… and I think that is a most appropriate phrase.  Basically… I’ve been out of school for 2 ½ years now, so I’m pretty definitely beyond college student age.  I’ve been married for a little over 2 ½ years now, so I guess we’re not really “newlyweds” by definition anymore.  I’ve gone through a few jobs and am still trying to identify/clarify exactly what I want to do with my life.  A lot of my friends are having babies, and they are super cute all pregnant… but I am not ready to travel that road yet.  I want to pay off all of our short-term debt (cars, etc., but not credit cards – don’t worry), but I also want to splurge on myself and Lance while we don’t have much responsibility.  I want to be super skinny/super fit but then I’d rather hang out and be lazy…  I feel like I am constantly vacillating between extremes… and it’s hard to figure out.  I feel like I’m in grown-up high school – there is pressure all around me, and I’m trying to figure out exactly who I am and what I want to do… only in grown-up high school, it’s not choosing which college/which major/which boyfriend/which social club.  Instead, it’s choosing where to live, how much to pay for a house, selecting insurance, deciding when to have kids… it’s weird!  And scary!  I’d always heard of the red-convertible mid-life crisis days… but no one bothered to tell me about the quarter-life crisis days!  (Well, except you, Kenz.  At least I know I’m not alone.)

 

So basically, here I am – 4ish months before my 25^th birthday and trying to figure out who I am all over again.

 

God has been teaching me a lot about my identity lately (as in, over the past several months).  Last fall, I was in a season of feeling pretty good about myself.  I was back to enjoying my job, I was freelance writing, I had lost some weight and kept it off, I was getting better at balancing my life, I was really involved at church… and then everything kind of exploded in about a week.  Obviously, there were tears (there are always tears when it comes to me…), but one of the things that really struck me was that I wasn’t sure who I was without all those things.  Without a job… feeling somewhat dissatisfied with some things at church… eating because I was sad… being so sad that I never had any fun…  It really shook me to my core to lose so many things that I’d used to frame my identity.  It almost took me back to my World Lit days of the Museum of Unconditional Surrender… but not quite.  Ha.  (That’s a really nerdy joke.  I recognize that.)  Basically, I was convicted that I had wrapped up my whole identity in my performance.  I think I’ve always tended to do that, and it’s gone okay for me because I am a perfectionist, and when I really apply myself to something, I’m typically pretty okay at it.  I graduated at the top of my class, a few points away from being a national merit scholar, and with a really high SAT score.  I danced my heart out on my competitive dance team and became an officer… and then got to dance when I went to ACU and had the privilege of choreographing multiple Sing Song routines because of it.  I was a class officer in high school and a member of FAC when I started to ACU.  I got jobs that I applied for, had a high GPA, and my professors liked me in college.  I dated, fell in love, and married.  I had great friends.  I was involved at church, I loved singing, I enjoyed writing…  Basically, I was good at things, so I felt good about who I was.

 

And the Lord reminded me (or allowed me to be reminded) that my identity is solely in His grace.

 

He reminded me that it’s okay to be weak.  It’s okay to ask for help.  It’s good to be humble.  It’s good to be gentle.  Having the most money doesn’t make you the most happy.  Being good at something doesn’t make you a good person.  Everyone has ups and downs.  I’m not better than anyone else because I can perform well… and I’m not worse than someone else because they can perform better.  My weight isn’t what makes me beautiful.  My confidence shouldn’t stem from my pride.  My confidence is really just the light of Jesus shining out of me.  Using my God-given gifts is great… as long as I’m using them for His glory and not mine… and as long as I remember they were given to me.  God doesn’t love me more when I’m good or less when I’m bad… He just loves me.  He just loves me.

 

These truths may not change the behavior you see from me (I still plan to work and try hard and sing and have friends and read and write)… but they absolutely change my motivation and my heart.  And I am by no means an expert in this new identity.  I still wrestle with it at times, and I believe that the Lord gave me the drive to achieve that I have inside me, so I will probably always be someone who tries really hard. To tie this back to the quarter-life crisis… I want to live squarely in the middle of this identity of grace and not worry about keeping up with the Joneses.  I want to give everything my best shot without feeling the pressure to do things just because my friends are doing them.  I want to look in the mirror and see heaven’s masterpiece rather than those 5 pounds I just can’t seem to lose.  I want to work as though I’m working for the Lord not for man without ever losing sight of the fact that some things have eternal consequences… and typographical errors are probably not one of those things.

Oh, ya know. February 5, 2009

My life has been inordinately busy/boring lately.  I am CONSTANTLY going, but it seems to be mostly in activities that are not exactly riveting to blog about.  Here are a few things that are going well in my life:

 

• I found a newish way to work that shaves 5 minutes off my drive! (On the way TO work, not FROM work though, which is sad.)
• Thanks to my friend Chris, I sat and laughed a new hysterical website for like an hour last night (cake wrecks)!  Oh my goodness, there were tears.  SO funny.
• My laptop is working better than it was for a long time!  It can even be open past a 90-degree angle!  Progress – hello!
• I’ve picked 2 out of 3 songs for my LTC chorus to sing.  That’s 66% done… which is better than the 66% NOT done that I was yesterday!
• Wal-Mart has had Pink Lady apples again… and they are my favorite.  And I eat at least one a day… today – two!
• I wear my iPod in one ear and listen to Christian music while I’m at work.  It puts me in such a good mood.
• The credit union credited my $35.00 back to me!  Hooray!
• I’m wearing my favorite socks today.  Well – favorite as in cushiest.  So good on the tootsies.
• Tomorrow is Friday!
• True Love Waits seems to be going really well at church.  I love hearing that girls who didn’t want to come to church are now eager to come and getting hugs after class.  That’s the good stuff.
• Our Valentine’s Day date is coming up!  Typically, we aren’t big on spending a lot on dates.  In fact, I’ve grown to be more of a homebody as I’ve gotten older (either that, or I’ve gotten cheaper…), but we are having a super fun Valentine’s Day date, and I am pretty darn excited about it!
• We had a fantastic Super Bowl party at our house.  We had 4 other couples over, and we all just hung out and (the girls) talked and (the boys) watched the game.  Oh, and we ATE!  We ate SO much!  It was a really fun night.  I enjoy having friends over… even if our crown molding isn’t finished! J
• I am especially thankful for our health.  Thank you, Lord.
• We signed up to be coleaders for small groups this time around.  Exciting!
• I’m not stressed from work. J