Always Being Right

My friend Lindsay has always been more put together, not just compared to Sarah, but most people I know. Since college, she has gotten a job where she oversee's a freshman housing at a local university.

I have become so worried about what this job is doing to her personality. She is always an authority figure over people. And it came out over and over again at our reunion. She is passionate about her job, but it is a hard job and takes up most of her time. She is in charge at her job. All of the people in her building are under her authority. Power like that effects you. In no way is Lindsay a tyrant or letting this power destroy her completely. But it has changed her.

Seeing only yourself as important #friendsreunion #lifelesson

Our friend's reunion was SO fun. We went hiking, visited a museum with all of these animals, talked, laughed, and drank A LOT of coffee. We truly were having a great time.

Saturday night we were heading out to have some fun downtown. At this point, we have spent a lot of time together, and I think Sarah became overwhelmed by everything happening in her life and lost it a few times while we were downtown- and I was annoyed by here words, they were harsh and cutting to me, not just her complaining. We survived the night with her mood, and we got back to her house. We were sitting down at her kitchen table enjoying some doughnuts that we got from sketchy voodoo doughnuts off of Colfax. She had a complete melt-down.

Getting ready to reflect #friendsreunion

Here I am sitting in the Denver airport processing #friendsreunion. It has been 6 years since Lindsay, Sarah and I have spent time together. I have seen them both throughout the years, but never have spent the weekend reunited since living in Denver.

Going to where you been from lets you see who you are now. These girls were a big part of the experience for me to become a grown-up. They were my people for that season.

Watching the Dick Van Dyke Show

I LOVE this show. Today I was thinking a lot about why I love it so much.
Outside of it being hilarious, and all these great comedy pieces of it. I love how it celebrates married and single women well.

I feel like that is a funny thing to say about a show that was made in the early 1960's, but it is so true. Sally is a single lady, and she has a pretty fabulous job, and though she is struggling with singleness, she still thrives in it.
I love watching how Rob interacts with her. He treats her like a peer, he doesn't look down on her at all for being single but protects her in an excellent way. He isn't her man, but since she is man-less, he makes sure that she is okay. He watches out for her in a cool way.

Flying Fears

A lot of people get nervous about flying. They hate that they are up in the air and that they can crash at any moment. This is not my fear. It doesn't bother me one bit to be in the sky on an airplane. 

But I do have lots of weird fears about flying. I am always nervous that I won't get to the airport in time. I am nervous that I will get in trouble at airport security and that security will take me away to that scary place security will take you. I fear having to sit next to a really fat, smelly person on the airplane. Or I fear that they will cancel my flight last minute and I won't get to go at all.

My Person

As the start of the bachelor begins this week. I am reminded of the famous line that comes each season of this show, "my person" Looking for my person. Last season Lauren B said this all the time about Ben.

Today as I sat at my desk with tears welling up in eyes yet again, feeling completely overwhelmed, I just wanted to have MY PERSON.

Mixing Business with Ministry

My job is to create a place for groups to come and retreat, to set them up for an experience where their campers can hear the gospel and experience spiritual growth in their relationship with Jesus, strengthen their friendships and have a really good fun time.

This is close to my heart. I love that my job is this. I love that I get to come alongside church leaders and help them create an experience that changes people's lives forever.

But,

There is always a but.

Summer Staff Camp Life

When I image working at camp. I still see a line of cabins with a wood walls and a front porch, an outbath close by. A historic dining hall and chapel. Everything is open air. I see summer staff who come in and know everything. They are going to change the world, and they do so that summer in the lives of their campers. These people are super heroes. They are pretty, can lifeguard, they know how to belay, they are stellar at teaching archery, make any field game amazing, and are always willing to put their arm around you in chapel.

This isn't at all how life at my camp works. We have modern buildings. They are more dorm style, each building doesn't match the next. Some are even motel style. There isn't one camp going on, instead tons and tons of little camps going on at once. Some lasting only 1 night, some up to 6. All groups with different ages, different dynamics, different focuses at this one place for their camp.

College roommate reunion planing--Next week here we come :)

About a week ago I texted my college roommate asking her if she knew this person who emailed my work account. Next week, she and another girl who we lived with are going to connect in Denver and have a few days reconnecting. We are putting a trip together quickly, and the 3 of us having been in the same place for at least 5 years.
I am so excited, nervous, a little overwhelm. I work up this morning at 6:00 am only to have an email saying that the flight price I booked changed and that I need call and verify the price change.

"Do not Worry"

It's been a long time, but this morning I decided to tackle my favorite hiking trail. I got ready by finding my hiking shoes, filling my water bottle and downloading John Mark Comer's sermon from Sunday on my iphone. 

I love listening to podcasts, but you get something more out of it when you are hiking up a steep hill, by yourself surrounded by trees dirt, and scrub bushes. 

Being taught about the Bible my whole life, there are some verses that I just want to roll my eyes to and say, "not again" because they are referred to ALL the time, and the words have lost it's meaning because of the times of being exposed to them. 

 "So do not worry, saying, 'what shall we eat?' or ' What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well, Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself." Matthew 6:31-34a NIV emphasis added is mine.

Mid-Life Crisis

"I think I am having a mid-life crisis" was the thought I had over and over this afternoon as I sat at my desk trying to get the million things on my to-do list done.  Instead of checking off the items, I kept thinking "I think I am having a mid-life crisis" googling what all goes into having a mid-life crisis and having silent tears slowly come out of my eyes.

Lake House Dream

Over a month ago I was looking at houses for sale in my home state, dreaming about what my life would look like if I didn't have to worry about money and could do whatever I could. I looked at so many lake houses for sale.

 THIS IS MY FAVORITE!!! 

I love it so much. 

It is easy to waste what you have abundant of

The clouds are coming in. I am sitting outside at my table, my spot where I feel inspired and reflective all at the same time. The place where I can feel honest, can read, and work the best. I sat here yesterday, in shorts concerned about being sunburned.

Today feels dramatically different than yesterday. It's cold! I am wearing leather boots, long sleeves, and my favorite maroon puffy vest. The wind though gentle, sounds fierce and keeps swisping the hairs on the back of my neck up. It might even rain soon.
My thoughts are everywhere. I don't know what to do with my day. I don't know what I want to write about here on my blog. I  have some big subjects that I want to tackle some cool image projects that I want to create on Canva. But not feeling motivated to start them. I don't know what to do and have just been sitting here at my spot for 40 minutes deciding how to use my time.

Why some people lie

I have been thinking a lot about lying this week. These thoughts started, when we had a part-timer staff girl Kelsey over to our house this week. I often feel like I don't get the whole truth from this girl. This is evening really made me think about honesty.

We were watching HGTV's Fixer-Upper. I started by asking, "Have you ever seen this show?" Her response was, "YEAH I LOVE IT, I WATCH IT ALL THE TIME!" She went on and on about how much she loves this show.
As we were watching, it became very clear that she knows nothing about this show. She didn't know that it took place in Waco. She didn't know who Clint was, she was so shocked that the island was a different color than the kitchen cabinets, she thought that Chip and Jojo only had 1 kid. All these indicators that she didn't know this  show at all.

Sunny Saturday Mornings

Yesterday morning I was secretly hoping someone would send me something in the mail. Getting a package that you didn't get is always the best. 

I knew it wouldn't happen; people don't send me boxes "because they are thinking of me" and I am really bad at sending things to people because "I was thinking of them."

The mail came in, and my box from target was there, more dry shampoo for me! I didn't even bother looking at the rest of the boxes. Ten minutes later on of my office mate asked if I wanted my mail, I, of course, took it and there was a box! A non-target box! I opened it, and an Ipad mini was in this box, brand-new iPod mini. With a sticky that said, "you won our drawing! Sorry it took me so long to get this to you." 

WHAT?!!?!?? 

Leadership meetings

I listen to Andy Stanley's leadership podcast about every other month. Even though I don't listen often, he is such an influential teacher that his words stick with me. He leads a weekly leadership meeting at his organization as well; he talks about these meetings often in his podcasts. He talks about how he sees these meetings as his time. How he gets to talk and teach on whatever he wants. These meetings are crucial to how his organization operates and he uses his time to create the culture of the organization.

Guessing the problem.

Do you know the leadership style where they ask you a bunch of questions so that they get you to conclude what they want you to think? They ask you, " What do you think will solve this problem?" where anything could be a right answer, but you know that that person has already answered that question and needs your answer to be the same as theirs?

I hate this! I just want you to tell me what you are thinking in these situations. I don't want to play this guessing game; I don't want you to lead me down trails to show me why the idea I have is wrong to get me to what you think is right.
I am pretty sure there are leadership classes that teach you this techquie. I think they sell it to people because you "discover what the problem is, making you have ownership over it and more willing to work at solving the problem"
This techique just pisses me off! I don't want to problem solve, if you have already done it for me and it just becomes a guessing game. I just want you to tell me what is wrong and then we can take all this time to figure out how to fix it. Coming up with tangalbe ways of moving forward on making things right instead of why things are wrong.

Are you with me on this? Does anyone else feel the same way as me?

Going to church Single

"Pathetic Lonely Girl...Everyone can see I am That Pathetic Lonely Girl."

This thought is in my head each Sunday I am brave enough to make it out to church and the service starts. I never sit my myself, always with two of my friends. My friends happen to be 10 years older than me and married to each other.  The feelings of being single take over me, as all the perfect newly married couples walk in holding hands and taking a seat. Tears start to roll out of my eyes. I feel so different and alone and it breaks my heart how much I don't fit in this situation. It breaks my heart that the seat next to me is empty and the whole church can see that I am not a catch, and no one wants to be with me.

Life options galore,am I doing this right?

I feel like the whole world is changing their traditions. When I look at the past, it seems like everyone was on the same path. Adults would work Monday-Friday 8:00-5:00 at a job typically in a downtown area. Their job was the same place that they reside; their kids would go to that public school in that town.  Church was Sunday morning and evening with a nap in the afternoon. I felt like you would job from household to household and that is basically what you would see across the board.

I feel like that isn't the case at all anymore. You can do charter school, homeschool, private school; public school almost seems rare when you put it against all of the options. Work no longer is bound to the Monday-Friday workdays, and so many people work from home, or weird hours and days. Church can start anytime on a weekend, and I even know of a few that meet on a Tuesday. Jumping to house to house today, you can have so many different ways of living.

Dinner Party

Last night we had a dinner party at our house, but we didn't intend to have one.

One of my roommate's friend, Cindy, comes to camp each spring to work for a couple of weeks. She can in yesterday, the boy who is always over at our house picked her up from the airport. Her, not knowing that my roommate is super angry at him, and me not talking to him arrange for all of us to have dinner today.

Why do I?

I feel like I am coming into a stage where I am all about growing in my knowledge of the Bible and who God is in His book, but this growing knowledge is taking a big hit on my relationship with Him.

I have become so consume in study and learning that I don't take time for prayer, to seek after Him while I am learning and growing.

Silence

Two weeks ago I was eating dinner in our camp dining hall, and I asked the boy who is always over at our house to move his elbows a little bit. This lead us to a fight. With his ending words saying to a co-worker,  "Well that's all I had to do to get her to stop talking to me" in this cutting hurtful tone.

So I decided if talking to me is so terrible for him, I would stop talking to him. It has been two weeks. And I haven't said a word to him.
TWO WHOLE WEEKS.
TWO WEEKS.

Psalms Connections

Often I feel like the Psalms are just a bunch of flowy words on a page. They don't speak to me. They almost seem meaningless.

But--that all seems to change where you feel like everything in your life is falling apart. 

He is Strong--when I am weak and a mess...

As I walked to work today, I told myself that I wasn't going to cry at all. I even put on extra mascara on as an extra security line to keep myself from crying at work today.

My day started out well, but then I got a phone call. It only takes one phone call to make everything about your emotions to fall apart. This happened to me today. One mean phone call and I was done for. I went outside and called by boss, I sat on the grass on the ball field and explained the entire situation to him. Feeling like crap as I explained everything that just happened.

Worthless Feelings

It has been quite a 48 hours for me. I have cried a lot. I have thought a lot. I had a melt-down about my job with my boss and got my job restructured. I did my job (as best as you can when you are an emotional mess) I just was on a hometown page from where I grew-up. A place that was a fairy-tale to be raised in until the mid-1990s when a new highway bypass was put in changing the entire culture of that town. Though I barely remember the good-old days, I was close enough to know it was great. I am struggling to know how to make my life that great memory for years to come.

Crying The Day Out

Tonight a girl who I just met asked me, "What did you at work today?" Simple question, but it took me back a little. I spent half of my work day crying today, like a legit 4 hours crying today, and I didn't have tissues for the first 2 hours of crying.

I started my day crying as well, I cried in the shower, I cried instead of getting ready for work; I cried as I walked to work, a whole lot of tears.

I was uberly sensitive about EVERYTHING!!!