It could be worse, I could have given you a 7 page document - and who does that except for a couple of my favourite people in the world?
1. My car door repaired or replaced
2. A used/refurbished replacement of my previous phone from Telus
3. CDs
Project 86 - Rival Factions
Mae - Singularity
Sleeping At Last - Keep No Score
Classic Crime - Albatross
The Listening - The Listening
Gabriel Wilson - Lovely Is Death
Pete Stewart - I Gave You A Desert
Tyrone Wells - Hold On
(Pre)4. Blender from Superstore
4. Cool Necklace
5. An entire box of Handwarmers (I'd even help pay for that)
6. Cool Shirts (if they don't fit I'll return them though)
7. Cool Jeans (this means they're of the tailored variety with flared bottoms and slightly skinnier at the knees W32 L34 and you shouldn't spend much money on them) These could be impossible to find - I'm starting to suspect I'll need to learn how to make jeans.
8. Cool Activity - you could just plan and do something creative with me
9. Beat me with a stick until I'm a better musician - OK fine maybe that wouldn't help... Maybe you could collect music charts (or even, gag, tabs) for my favourite music: The Juliana Theory, Brandtson, House Of Heroes, The Violet Burning (they might be the easiest to get real music charts for - you just need to join their underground club and who wouldn't want to do that?).
10. Big Pyrex Measuring Cup - OK I'm only half-joking - this definitely wouldn't be as cool as any of the other things but I'd use it.
11. Comfy warm socks - my Dad gave me two pairs and one is already dead and the other one won't last forever and besides you can only wear them once and then you need to wash them. Wool is not comfortable, it's itchy.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
UM Report
So it's nearing the end of September and things of the UM are as different as always.
It was decided that the different facets of our lives together would be separated into categories and given over to pairs of people to be drafted into a proposed plan of action.
Hence Andy & Shay are working on what our lives of prayer might look like. Pam and I have some suggestions about incorporating the disciplines of silence and solitude. There's food and cleaning and a host of other things to be considered.
Last night I was working on the cooking theory and was met with several challenges from the new guys. And I didn't appreciate them. How annoying to have to defend something that works. How dare you suggest alternatives. Somewhere in the middle of this rumours of what might be brewing in other areas came up and I immediately attacked them too.
And I had to stop and breathe and pray. And whilst praying it occurred to me very strongly that this September feels very different than last, and not for the better, even though the house isn't nearly as chaotic. And it's all my fault.
Last year, I knew it would be hard. I knew there would be painful sacrifices. I knew my personal life would be put on hold and become second to the people I would now live with. I expected it so much that it was surprising not to be as extreme as it could have been.
Where has that gone?
Now it's easy to be selfish and cling tightly.
And so a Chevelle song came to me and I had to pray it out at work and then later on when I got home. The chorus channeled was:
"I want to fight I want to fight I want to prove I'm right. I want to fight I want to fight so turn and forfeit."
I focused on a passage in James 3 today about the wisdom that comes from heaven.
"But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness."
And I feel so caught right now. I want the freedom to have alternative opinions on things like prayer, but I want to be submissive/yielding. So I need to pray.
It was decided that the different facets of our lives together would be separated into categories and given over to pairs of people to be drafted into a proposed plan of action.
Hence Andy & Shay are working on what our lives of prayer might look like. Pam and I have some suggestions about incorporating the disciplines of silence and solitude. There's food and cleaning and a host of other things to be considered.
Last night I was working on the cooking theory and was met with several challenges from the new guys. And I didn't appreciate them. How annoying to have to defend something that works. How dare you suggest alternatives. Somewhere in the middle of this rumours of what might be brewing in other areas came up and I immediately attacked them too.
And I had to stop and breathe and pray. And whilst praying it occurred to me very strongly that this September feels very different than last, and not for the better, even though the house isn't nearly as chaotic. And it's all my fault.
Last year, I knew it would be hard. I knew there would be painful sacrifices. I knew my personal life would be put on hold and become second to the people I would now live with. I expected it so much that it was surprising not to be as extreme as it could have been.
Where has that gone?
Now it's easy to be selfish and cling tightly.
And so a Chevelle song came to me and I had to pray it out at work and then later on when I got home. The chorus channeled was:
"I want to fight I want to fight I want to prove I'm right. I want to fight I want to fight so turn and forfeit."
I focused on a passage in James 3 today about the wisdom that comes from heaven.
"But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness."
And I feel so caught right now. I want the freedom to have alternative opinions on things like prayer, but I want to be submissive/yielding. So I need to pray.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Goings On
So I worked a 12 1/2 hour day today. The last couple hours were actually the best though. And hours are a good thing when money is especially desirable as it is right now. So my question for you all instead of, "what's new?" or "how are you doing?" is:
What have you been spending money on lately?
It's bound to get different results and a unique perspective on what you've been up to of late.
No that wasn't a general statement, you should call me or leave a comment or email me.
Speaking of calling, not having a phone book is driving me a little bit crazy, but just you wait, I'm going to add a column to the right with my birthday wish list complete with appropriate links - but not tonight. Because even though I'm not going to change my trend of not going to bed before midnight (I've done it every day since last Thursday, and it could be longer - I just can't specifically recall any further back than that, edit: last Tuesday was part of the streak and I don't remember being any smarter the next day...), I still need to get a little bit of sleep before I get up early to get an oil change before heading off to plan Trevor's bachelor party with Jono. I wrote out a to-do list tonight. The thing has just been mental for the last couple weeks and it's made me go a little mental, possibly because it has over 30 items on it. I can't keep up with my thoughts. The dots aren't all connecting. Up above I didn't explain how getting a used cell phone like my last one will be on my wish-list.
Yesterday I felt the tiredness. I had woken up at about 4 AM mysteriously and didn't get back to sleep. I was a zombie getting ready, was almost half an hour late for work, and didn't really wake up until 10:30 or so. After that I started having the most wonderful time. I put on a mix CD RJ gave me and it put me into a grandish mood and I got into the flow of things work wise too. Then I threw on an old mix CD and it made me remember the simple things and how much I enjoy music, and it made me pray a lot. Things however took a different turn about 3 PM. I had only hit a couple of snags at work by then but then I did something stupid while going quickly. It was one of those things where you question it mentally while you're doing it but you're in a hurry and before your brain can tell you no it's already happened. So that's how I ended up puncturing/smashing my left middle fingernail with a hammer-tacker (it's like a heavy duty stapler with a handle). There was no duct tape on my mouth for that one, because how could I get my finger in there to suck all the blood that way? It all went downhill from there with glitch after glitch, slowing things down and making me angry and then I get all upset about being upset and I'm half-trying to pray through the whole thing and at one point I can't believe the intensity of how angry I'm getting and almost cry. Then I went to my parents' and relaxed all night with my family and my visiting aunt & uncle and Sherry. So a fair bit of mood swings that day.
I was amused reading my last entry (from 2 AM I might point out) because you could quite easily take all the fish stuff and over-analyze phrases like "those people" and think the italics means a kind of glowering tone; "aren't especially keen about storing up potential energy very long" and think I'm getting cabin fever; and "violently thrash about, clearly because they want to have some final fun before they die" and think I'm getting the movie-popular commitment claustrophobia.
Anyway, none of those were cognizant at the time, nor are they true. I was just being silly.
Sherry asked me what attracted me to her in the first place the other day. That's a rather difficult question given it would require going back 3 years, but I was thinking about it Thursday on my break and remembered going to the girls' house for a bread & wine night with Epic together with Faye (it might have been on my mind because Dave said, "to hell with the devil," on Tuesday night at Andy's party and it reminded me of how he was talking about Stryper with Rachel at church one night and I spontaneously screamed that line with incredible volume and shrillness. I haven't even heard Stryper do it, but I've heard Five Iron Frenzy's tribute and I thought that was hilarious. Dave then threated to kill me if I ever did that again so when he was leaving the bread & wine night me and Faye ran over to the door and screamed it out at him as he was going to his car. Yes, I'm still alive today).
So why think about this night in regards to Sherry? Well I don't have any specific memories about her from then actually (although it seems to me that I wrote some sort of journal entry about the evening stating that she cried while we were praying about the Joel passage about the locust army that Pam read). But the lack of specific memories is what's significant here. I have thousands of detailed specific memories about Sherry. And while I may have her deluded into thinking I have an awesome memory, I realize that it's because having her around instantly triggers my brain to sense something great is happening and attention is exponentially heightened. It's interesting because I can remember Sherry and Laura coming over to RJ's for brunch (we loved throwing brunches, and the details for that are exquisite, I can recall the waffles and the lighting in the kitchen and the smell of frying pork and the colours of the fruit and the taste of the yogurt. I can recall the conversations too, such as Sherry discussing what she'd been considering for work for the summer (it was spring) for which the key appealing factors were physical activity and sunshine. OK so I can't recall a single thing RJ said, but I can recall that I was excited about Sherry coming over, which I suppose isn't very hard to surmise since I just said it was spring and I already figured out I told RJ in the fall. But if I told him in the fall - Septemberish to be more specific - then she got my attention while I was living at home. But how did she even have opportunity to get my attention since we didn't hang out what so ever?
So the Bread & Wine evening, which can be placed very close to the approximate time period of awareness, could have been an observational occasion. Could have been the occasion. If so, what attracted me then? Her personality of course. And I don't think her personality's changed since then. It's the hundred normal insignificant things she does in any given hour that easily identify her as Sherry and no one else. It's when she says, "whoopsies."
While I was camping on the not-as-long-as-I'd-have-liked Labour Day weekend Meg mentioned a book called, He's Just Not That Into You, or something along those lines. I've never read it but I like the title (yes clearly I like it so much I'm not even sure I have it correct).
Maybe it's just me coming from an entire family of chivalry appreciatives but it struck me that you should have someone you don't have to do anything to impress. You just being you is all that's necessary to make them crazy about you.
While I was in BC we hiked up to see Bridal Falls. It only took 5 minutes to get there. It seemed bizarre to me. How can something this beautiful and impressive require such little effort to reach? Along the way Sherry pointed out different plants and told me stories and it was just too much. Having hung out with her for a week straight, I was slightly overwhelmed and I couldn't help but blurt out, "Sherry, you're awesome." It confronted me everywhere we went and there was always some new way for it to display itself.
On the drive home Sherry was telling me about what a smart guy had been telling her about the original Hebrew in the creation account in Genesis. Something along the lines of God creating man in his image and then making them male and female and the specific line about marriage and how marriage (the two halves united) is a more perfect picture of God's image. It's two (re)becoming one. And Ephesians talks about that too. We are Christ's bride. And Jesus prays for that kind of unity in John 17.
And I was a bit bewildered trying to imagine it all. Most of the time it's really easy to accept that God adores every little thing about me. But then when I'm freaking out at work, it gets slightly more difficult. And it's after I'm cooled down a little bit and talking to him that it almost freaks me out. Because I'm starting to see it.
Sherry made insecure comments about her 'strong likes and dislikes' pertaining to food (or simply pickiness which spellcheck is begging me to change to finickiness but it doesn't even recognize spellcheck so what does it know?)' several times during the week in BC and it was cute. As if that could annoy me, it's part of her charm.
I fell head-over-heels for her last fall and it flabbergasts her a bit because she was all stressed out then and 'not at her best'. But she's always the best.
Sherry by the way is fantastic at coming up with great ways to steal my heart more. I've wanted to read the Bible chronologically for years and years now and not only did she leave one for me on my desk but she put notes on it.
And she dresses up so that Pam prays for me because I'll need extra self-control. Silly Pam, Sherry's always got her eyes and they're enough all on their own to keep mine.
Anyway it's 1:13 AM and this could keep going on and on, but suffice to say that God is romantic, and that is a sign and wonder to contemplate and blush at.
What have you been spending money on lately?
It's bound to get different results and a unique perspective on what you've been up to of late.
No that wasn't a general statement, you should call me or leave a comment or email me.
Speaking of calling, not having a phone book is driving me a little bit crazy, but just you wait, I'm going to add a column to the right with my birthday wish list complete with appropriate links - but not tonight. Because even though I'm not going to change my trend of not going to bed before midnight (I've done it every day since last Thursday, and it could be longer - I just can't specifically recall any further back than that, edit: last Tuesday was part of the streak and I don't remember being any smarter the next day...), I still need to get a little bit of sleep before I get up early to get an oil change before heading off to plan Trevor's bachelor party with Jono. I wrote out a to-do list tonight. The thing has just been mental for the last couple weeks and it's made me go a little mental, possibly because it has over 30 items on it. I can't keep up with my thoughts. The dots aren't all connecting. Up above I didn't explain how getting a used cell phone like my last one will be on my wish-list.
Yesterday I felt the tiredness. I had woken up at about 4 AM mysteriously and didn't get back to sleep. I was a zombie getting ready, was almost half an hour late for work, and didn't really wake up until 10:30 or so. After that I started having the most wonderful time. I put on a mix CD RJ gave me and it put me into a grandish mood and I got into the flow of things work wise too. Then I threw on an old mix CD and it made me remember the simple things and how much I enjoy music, and it made me pray a lot. Things however took a different turn about 3 PM. I had only hit a couple of snags at work by then but then I did something stupid while going quickly. It was one of those things where you question it mentally while you're doing it but you're in a hurry and before your brain can tell you no it's already happened. So that's how I ended up puncturing/smashing my left middle fingernail with a hammer-tacker (it's like a heavy duty stapler with a handle). There was no duct tape on my mouth for that one, because how could I get my finger in there to suck all the blood that way? It all went downhill from there with glitch after glitch, slowing things down and making me angry and then I get all upset about being upset and I'm half-trying to pray through the whole thing and at one point I can't believe the intensity of how angry I'm getting and almost cry. Then I went to my parents' and relaxed all night with my family and my visiting aunt & uncle and Sherry. So a fair bit of mood swings that day.
I was amused reading my last entry (from 2 AM I might point out) because you could quite easily take all the fish stuff and over-analyze phrases like "those people" and think the italics means a kind of glowering tone; "aren't especially keen about storing up potential energy very long" and think I'm getting cabin fever; and "violently thrash about, clearly because they want to have some final fun before they die" and think I'm getting the movie-popular commitment claustrophobia.
Anyway, none of those were cognizant at the time, nor are they true. I was just being silly.
Sherry asked me what attracted me to her in the first place the other day. That's a rather difficult question given it would require going back 3 years, but I was thinking about it Thursday on my break and remembered going to the girls' house for a bread & wine night with Epic together with Faye (it might have been on my mind because Dave said, "to hell with the devil," on Tuesday night at Andy's party and it reminded me of how he was talking about Stryper with Rachel at church one night and I spontaneously screamed that line with incredible volume and shrillness. I haven't even heard Stryper do it, but I've heard Five Iron Frenzy's tribute and I thought that was hilarious. Dave then threated to kill me if I ever did that again so when he was leaving the bread & wine night me and Faye ran over to the door and screamed it out at him as he was going to his car. Yes, I'm still alive today).
So why think about this night in regards to Sherry? Well I don't have any specific memories about her from then actually (although it seems to me that I wrote some sort of journal entry about the evening stating that she cried while we were praying about the Joel passage about the locust army that Pam read). But the lack of specific memories is what's significant here. I have thousands of detailed specific memories about Sherry. And while I may have her deluded into thinking I have an awesome memory, I realize that it's because having her around instantly triggers my brain to sense something great is happening and attention is exponentially heightened. It's interesting because I can remember Sherry and Laura coming over to RJ's for brunch (we loved throwing brunches, and the details for that are exquisite, I can recall the waffles and the lighting in the kitchen and the smell of frying pork and the colours of the fruit and the taste of the yogurt. I can recall the conversations too, such as Sherry discussing what she'd been considering for work for the summer (it was spring) for which the key appealing factors were physical activity and sunshine. OK so I can't recall a single thing RJ said, but I can recall that I was excited about Sherry coming over, which I suppose isn't very hard to surmise since I just said it was spring and I already figured out I told RJ in the fall. But if I told him in the fall - Septemberish to be more specific - then she got my attention while I was living at home. But how did she even have opportunity to get my attention since we didn't hang out what so ever?
So the Bread & Wine evening, which can be placed very close to the approximate time period of awareness, could have been an observational occasion. Could have been the occasion. If so, what attracted me then? Her personality of course. And I don't think her personality's changed since then. It's the hundred normal insignificant things she does in any given hour that easily identify her as Sherry and no one else. It's when she says, "whoopsies."
While I was camping on the not-as-long-as-I'd-have-liked Labour Day weekend Meg mentioned a book called, He's Just Not That Into You, or something along those lines. I've never read it but I like the title (yes clearly I like it so much I'm not even sure I have it correct).
Maybe it's just me coming from an entire family of chivalry appreciatives but it struck me that you should have someone you don't have to do anything to impress. You just being you is all that's necessary to make them crazy about you.
While I was in BC we hiked up to see Bridal Falls. It only took 5 minutes to get there. It seemed bizarre to me. How can something this beautiful and impressive require such little effort to reach? Along the way Sherry pointed out different plants and told me stories and it was just too much. Having hung out with her for a week straight, I was slightly overwhelmed and I couldn't help but blurt out, "Sherry, you're awesome." It confronted me everywhere we went and there was always some new way for it to display itself.
On the drive home Sherry was telling me about what a smart guy had been telling her about the original Hebrew in the creation account in Genesis. Something along the lines of God creating man in his image and then making them male and female and the specific line about marriage and how marriage (the two halves united) is a more perfect picture of God's image. It's two (re)becoming one. And Ephesians talks about that too. We are Christ's bride. And Jesus prays for that kind of unity in John 17.
And I was a bit bewildered trying to imagine it all. Most of the time it's really easy to accept that God adores every little thing about me. But then when I'm freaking out at work, it gets slightly more difficult. And it's after I'm cooled down a little bit and talking to him that it almost freaks me out. Because I'm starting to see it.
Sherry made insecure comments about her 'strong likes and dislikes' pertaining to food (or simply pickiness which spellcheck is begging me to change to finickiness but it doesn't even recognize spellcheck so what does it know?)' several times during the week in BC and it was cute. As if that could annoy me, it's part of her charm.
I fell head-over-heels for her last fall and it flabbergasts her a bit because she was all stressed out then and 'not at her best'. But she's always the best.
Sherry by the way is fantastic at coming up with great ways to steal my heart more. I've wanted to read the Bible chronologically for years and years now and not only did she leave one for me on my desk but she put notes on it.
And she dresses up so that Pam prays for me because I'll need extra self-control. Silly Pam, Sherry's always got her eyes and they're enough all on their own to keep mine.
Anyway it's 1:13 AM and this could keep going on and on, but suffice to say that God is romantic, and that is a sign and wonder to contemplate and blush at.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Which Do You Prefer: Stage, or Phase?
What does enmeshing mean? Well I have a dictionary, not even the on-line one, and it says, “ensnare in or as in a net.”
I returned from a holiday in BC where I had the unlikely chance to go drift-net fishing. This was an experience for a couple reasons, but I would like to highlight that it was fun seeing how Jesus' disciples might have caught fish. The fact that tiny plastic fibres could trap fish was rather intriguing too.
Today I didn't see Sherry and it felt backwards. I had decided I wanted to go visit my family and after I mentioned it, she later told someone else that she would be around the house for the evening. And at first I thought, how sad that she doesn't want to come too (yes I know I hadn't specifically invited her) but then it struck me that I really had become one of those people.
When you ask those people what they're doing they need to check. No not their calendar, or in Andy's case his diary, but with someone else. And no they're not checking to see if they have a previous engagement like they would if they were checking their calendar. They're checking to see if someone else would enjoy the proposed event. Well why should that matter? You ask, and didn't they see each other every single day just last week?
Yes I too might be bewildered by such phenomenon except that I witnessed fish who, like myself, aren't especially keen about storing up potential energy very long. These fish when finding themselves stuck in nets, proceed to violently thrash about, clearly because they want to have some final fun before they die. Upon drawing the net out, you now have the pleasure of trying to untangle the fish, who has gone to great lengths to make sure he is thoroughly joined to the net. It's not so bad. If it weren't like that, you would get hungry and maybe your children would starve. Since they're joined, the fish goes where the net does, and you've got the net.
Rapt
"Girls who love God are powerfully attractive, to the point of being intimidating."
This statement is akin to the stereotypical male reaction to a 'hot girl'. He proceeds to become tongue-tied, self-conscious,awkward, foolish, etc.
This statement is akin to the stereotypical male reaction to a 'hot girl'. He proceeds to become tongue-tied, self-conscious,awkward, foolish, etc.
But it also speaks of an intense awareness that should lead to caution. When a girl is that awesome, if you get close, your emotions will get entangled; it will be difficult to remain casual, objective, nonchalant. Your eyes will be glued to this person who almost seems to glow with God's presence, and that's not relaxing.
Are you still intimidating?
You've still got my focus.
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