An open letter to God

I was speaking with both my mother and sister about our current need for finding a new place to live and how I can't find what I want. They both made it clear to me that God is a Big God that cares about small details. My heart knows that He is a big God who can Do Anything, but sometimes my head convinces me otherwise and due to all the crap (technical term) that's been happening to us lately I'm a wee bit jaded as far as optimism goes. However, I am trying very hard to believe that God will give us just what we need while also hoping that he'll give us some wants as well, all without trying to make him into Santa Claus God. So here is an open letter to God, in the same form that I emailed it to myself (my way of "sending" it to God) on what we're looking for in a place to live.


Needs:

3 bedrooms: 1 for us and 1 for each kid

spacious rooms for our belongings and the kids to play

decent sized, fenced in backyard for the kids to run around in unrestricted

decent sized kitchen, lots of counter space

pantry

washer/dryer included

$1000 a month or below, all utilities included

lots of windows for natural light and sunshine

Wants:
an extra bedroom for an office/library
gas stove
a walk in pantry would be amazing
it'd be awesome if there was a laundry room
walk in closet in the master bedroom


Wherever we live next is where we'd like to stay until we can afford a house, so we're being slightly more rigid in our requirements, because "good enough" might become intolerable after a few years.
We have an appointment to go look at a place at 10 am, I drove by it yesterday and not gonna lie, it looks a little iffy but it also has several porches and sunrooms attached and looks like it would be big enough for our needs. It has a very large backyard but it's not fenced. We'll see, I guess.
If ya'll reading this know of any places that fit the bill above, please let me know! and if you wouldn't mind keeping us in your prayers as we search (for a house and a job for me) we would really appreciate it!

Five Things I love Friday

I am going to ignore the depressed voice that says "life sucks" and attempt to count my blessings in the form of a Five Things I love Friday post despite the fact that I don't want to. So here goes:

This is the guitar I have! pic's not Duncan though.

1. my guitar. Ever since the one Sunday a few months ago when my FIL led worship and asked me to play guitar on the worship team, I've been a fairly regular member on the stage. I've been on the past several Sundays straight, it's been great being part of a worship team again and remembering all the little quirks that go with the territory. I've loved getting to know Duncan again (yes, I named my guitar. His full name is Duncan McTavish, if you care to know. I got him in high school, what do you expect?) and I have a new set of strings in my purse just waiting to be put on, and am on the search for some more picks (fun, brightly colored ones because let's face it, they're tiny and easy to lose, especially in a black guitar case). It's an emotional creative outlet that I never should have stopped utilizing and I'm glad I have started again. As are my kids because I let them strum the strings while I play and we've even looked up the chords to "Hokey Pokey" and "Five Little Monkeys".

2. Psych. New season started yesterday after a super-long hiatus (what was that all about??), we DVRd it because of the NLCS game and it's sitting there in that little black box calling to me. I even told Bogie how good I had been because I had resisted watching it all day long! What a good girl am I. Now, does anyone know where I can watch last season's episodes and get all caught up before we start the new season? I'll use my birthday candle wish on you!

3. Candles. We're sliding in the Autumn season now, it's colder and windier with fairly frequent rain. The leaves are changing colors and it looks like (probably because of all the rain we had...anyone?) the colors will be spectacular this year. My reigning favorites for fall are Pumpkin Spice and Cranberry Chutney, although I'm currently burning the rest of a Warm Apple Pie so that I can light up the new Pumpkin Spice.

4. Birthdays. Bogie's is the 20th. Mine's the 25th. We usually do a joint birthday celebration, which I love. We're currently planning a shindig or two and I can't wait! I've lost track of how old we are, but I'm pretty sure we're going to be 29. And no, that will not be my age for the next 10 years because I think that's a stupid habit. or tradition. or whatever you want to call it. Your age does not define you, just because the number goes up doesn't mean you're suddenly old or unwanted or useless. Own your age! Be proud of it! You've worked hard and overcome a lot to reach the age that you are and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Yes, there are people that are younger than you and there always will be, just like there will always be people older than you (probably. unless you're the new Methuselah, in which case I recommend investing in some vintage baseball cards and comic books). I know quite a few people that pretend (even though everyone knows they're lying) that they're much younger than they are and I think it's ridiculous. Stop worrying about your age and start worrying about your health, if you look great and take care of yourself nobody will care how old you are!

These two have been amazing to us these past few months.

5. Family. We are not in a particularly good place right now, financially, emotionally, etc. I'm still on unemployment (laid off 9 days after I came back from maternity leave) and if it weren't for the generosity of our family, we'd be in a very bad way. No job, no home, no car (yeah, it died. no COD yet) but we're healthy (well, mostly. D-man's got a stuffy nose and we're currently on day 2 of no dairy to try to figure out why he poops 50 times a day and the smell could gag a rhinoceros). We have food to eat, warm beds to sleep in, and we're all alive and well. and I'm not going to say "it could be worse" because the last time I said that our car died like an hour later.






Hey, I did it! It's been a rough week, and I'm kind of in "I have to laugh or else I'll cry" stage. I mean, it can only get better, right? There can only be so many bad things that happen in a row before I start writing it all down to turn it into a dark comedy screenplay. If I were Harold Crick, I would most definitely be in a tragedy right now. But notice I said "right now"! I am not in a Shakespeare play, I can change the genre AND the acts. and I will, I just need a nap or two, maybe a little red wine and chocolate.

I haven't the faintest idea what's going on...

so this has been a hell of a week. I'm sorry, but it has.

Monday morning I found out that I did not get the job that I waited 2 weeks to find out about.
A few hours later Bogie calls and tells me the van has died and it looks like the transmission's gone.
Later that evening we find out that our church's pastor has resigned under very not good circumstances and the whole church family is still reeling from that.

and because all of that wasn't enough, yesterday my Grandpa (mom's dad) passed out at the doctor's office, and ended up being admitted to the hospital since it was the quickest way to find out what's wrong (which they still don't know).

Seriously, what is going ON?

Five Things I love Friday Fail

I really wanted to write a Five Things I love Friday, but I'm having a really hard time coming up with some right now (that I haven't done already, that is).

We're potty-training ZaZa and it's not going well. (except for today. today's the best she's done so far, with only one accident and that was during naptime so she probably didn't even know what was going on) we switched up the reward candy tonight, so that might help too. we don't feed her candy, so we figured one smartie every time she peed in the potty would be great incentive. tonight we switched to Reese's Pieces since we were almost out of smarties (we MIGHT have eaten most of them), and I think she likes those even better!

I interviewed for a job last monday the 26th, and was told I would hear by that friday. friday came and went. I called monday afternoon, they were "still in the decision making process" and she would let me know by THIS friday. take a wild guess what happened. that's right....today came and went, not a word. Bogie told me I had to wait until Monday to bug them again. This job could work out really well for us, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt but seriously...does it really take two weeks to make up your mind?

we found a townhouse we like, but while it's in the area we want, it's pretty small and kind of awkwardly laid out. we found another townhouse that we like even better, it's larger, cleaner, and will probably be cheaper in the long run, but it's much farther away than we wanted and if I get the above mentioned job would mean a 40 minute drive to work for me. We're filling out the application for the bigger one tonight, but I was really hoping to have heard from that job by now because no landlord wants to hear that your income is unemployment. oh, well.
both my mom and my sister told me to give God my specific requests for our house and let him do the rest. so I sent him an email and did just that (technically, I sent an email to myself and addressed it to God but it works all the same).

so yeah...there's a whole mess of crap going on right now and I don't even remember what normal is anymore. coffee. coffee is normal, I think. coffee will be one of my favorite things until the end of time.

September Movies

This month's movies include some bonus films, and I'm having problems finding some of the films I want to watch (y'know, the "you haven't seen that yet??" ones)
My 2 films for the month were Calm Yourself (1935, directed by George B. Seitz) and Desert Flower (2009, directed by Sherry Horman).
Calm Yourself was an odd little film, not much character development and an underbaked plot. The film opens with two people kissing, and when the girl's father walks in and starts yelling we discover he (the father) is the man's boss. Kissing Man gets fired, decides to start his own business and names it (ready for this?) "Calm Yourself". His business is basically taking care of tricky little problems that other people don't want to take care of, like firing someone (his own being his inspiration for the company), pawning jewelry, or retrieving drunken husbands from bars. He takes on some cases that all eventually get intertwined with each other, and in the beginning he professes love for the girl he was kissing in the beginning (they were going to elope at one point), and by the end of the film he's kissing another girl who was actually a client's daughter and we're led to believe they're suddenly all "happily ever after". Maybe I missed a crucial character development scene when I went to keep D from getting in the trash (again), but I don't think so. Toss in some policemen, an angry Great Dane, a baby, and a costume party and that pretty much sums it up. Not horrible, but nothing great.

Waris Dirie

Desert Flower is based on the life of Waris Dirie, a famous supermodel from Somalia and now the UN spokeswoman against FGM (female genital mutilation). I first read Dirie's story in the Reader's Digest, back in the 90's when it first came out, so when Carl said he had the film I was interested in seeing it. Her story is a rather miraculous one and very inspiring (although we can't all have that marvelous bone structure).  I'm not going to go into too much detail about what she went through as far as the FGM, if you can stomach it look it up, but suffice it to say she was subjected to brutal torture at the age of 5 and endured a great amount of pain until she had corrective surgery as an adult. I will also add a warning that there is a very disturbing scene towards the end of the movie that has to do with the FGM. The film itself was fairly well done, it had some amazing cinematography shots that were breathtaking, and then there were other parts that were kind of "meh" (one scene seemed irrelevant altogether, and there were other scenes that belonged but were too short and choppy and could have used a little work.) or maybe the editor needed a little work. I can't say I recommend viewing it because it's definitely very intense in several scenes, but it's a story worth knowing on a topic that is still either taboo or unknown, and if the film raises awareness than more power to it! I had no idea that such a thing as FGM even existed, much less that anyone would actually think it was a good idea!

I had 3 bonus films this month too:
Tangled (2010, dir. N. Greno & B. Howard)- so cute! The classic story of Rapunzel revamped, with some animal sidekicks because hey, it's Disney. A couple scary scenes for little ones, but a lovely story with great animation, cute songs, and the standard Disney love story with a few twists. (and yeah, totally crushing on Zachary Levi now. dude can sing!)


The Conspirator (2010, dir. Robert Redford)- apparently there was a team of people behind Lincoln's assassination and this is the story of one woman who was put on trial for conspiracy and treason. Mary Surratt owned a boarding house that John Wilkes Booth frequented, in addition to allegedly distributing weapons and plans for Booth. I had no idea there was a team of people behind the assassination, much less that a woman was arrested as well. Interesting story, very well done film.


The Next Three Days (2010, dir. Paul Haggis), woman is arrested for murder she didn't commit (or did she?), husband decides to bust her out when they lose the appeal. Tension and drama ensue. it was okay, rather mediocre fare but decent enough that we weren't left disappointed.







I made a partial list of films that I need to see (the aforementioned "you haven't seen that yet??" ones), 4 of them I can view on Netflix watch instantly, and the rest I'm going to browse friends' and family member's DVD collections. If you have any of these, would you be willing to lend it to me? or better yet, bring it to me and watch with me? I'll make popcorn! I'll sell you Mike & Ike's and Raisinettes for $6 a box. It'll be epic.

NETFLIX
usual suspects
blues brothers

2001: a space odyssey

raging bull

Alien

Aliens

16 candles

pretty in pink

ghost

the godfather

goodfellas

silence of the lambs

psycho

apocalypse now

vertigo

bull durham

big lebowski

scarface

groundhog day

stand by me

life of brian

rocky

the truman show