this one doesn't have a title

man it's a cold dreary sunday. i broke down this year and got the heat turned on. for the past 3 years i've just gotten by each winter with a space heater. having the central heat turned on is much nicer, i won't lie. i think i made a wise choice. i'm very grateful i can snuggle up in my warm little house.

this weekend has been one of the laziest weekends i have ever had. i had a crazy work week and it was nice to pile up in my bed watching movies all day yesterday. i did manage to throw on some clothes and venture in to the outdoors a bit last night. angela and i went to the mall, then met cj at common market. from there we went to graham's house then on to this place called yesteryear's. it's some karaoke bar on independence and i won't lie, i was pumped at the thought of singing "here i go again on my own". i ended up not staying though. i can tolerate pretty much any environment as long as i'm in good company. but on the small list of places where i refuse to hang out, places that remind me of lancaster is up top and that's exactly what this place was. none of us knew what we were getting in to when we agreed to go. the trip over there was pretty fun though. we had mini karaoke in my car so angela and i got to impress everyone with our uncanny ability to know usher by heart. at least i think they were impressed. i was too in to the moment to really notice.

church this morning was amazing. the message was such a wake up call in so many ways. as soon as the podcast is up, i'll provide a link to it. simply put, it was about love. i'm not even going to try and sum it up because i'd just butcher it. but it tied in with a few things that have been on my mind lately. maybe i'll put those things into digital words at some point but for now i'm going to resume operation: lazy piece of crap and get back to my netflix queue.

i am fully prepared to catch crap for this

http://www.facebook.com/creaturestolemytwinkie

bah! i have on argument. i have no excuse. all i have is a new facebook profile and a neck that is stiff from my head hanging low in shame :/

you win, internetz!

sunny days

i loved the little sesame street logos google had going on for the past week or so:

but seriously i would check every morning, waiting for the one that would feature kermit. BUT IT NEVER CAME. he wasn't even in the group shot. is kermit not on sesame street anymore? :(

also, joe called me this week to tell me the greatest news i've heard in a while: he is moving back to charlotte!!!! he leaves dallas friday and should be back in the queen city by sunday. i was at work when he called so i had to contain myself but i was dancing on the inside. i've missed him so much! he moved exactly one week after steven and, not to sound all pathetic, i have pretty much just loathed the fact that both of my closest friends were no longer here. if steven doesn't find a job before his fall break, he's coming home for 6 weeks. apparently his school does this year round thing where they're on then off for extended periods of time. does it make me a bad friend if i'm hoping he doesn't find a job? then again he'll be in charlotte for only 6 weeks which will be just long enough for me to get used to having him down the street only to say "see ya, steven!" yet again. speaking of steven, i need to call vanessa and make a $5 movie/amelie's date.

and gah, one last thing i want to document is my hair. here are some 100% percentile vanity pictures taken with my webcam a few nights ago:




this isn't the longest it's been in a while. it was actually longer a little over a year ago then i got it hacked into this ramona quimby-esque bob. it's been a'growin ever since and then along came some layers which i didn't exactly ask for which was another follicle hurdle to jump. none the less, it's getting some length to it and i am determined - DE-TER-MINED - to keep it going.

i'll grow old & start acting my age

furman was in town the past two days. i revisited my early 20s by going to see brand new monday night; and last night cobra starship was playing a show so i we-- PUKE. ok i can't even say it with out vomitting. it's true though. but only because furman works for them so i was hanging out with him. i shouldn't hate. they're friendly people who didn't seem to care that a strange girl with braces was on their bus watching tropical thunder. and they're good at what they do, it's just not my thing. i can understand how they would appeal to a certain crowd. to each their own, right? i need to stop being pretentious.

it was all fun though. it occurred to me last night, as i washed the 21+ stamp off my hand for the 3rd night in 4 days (i also went to see mutemath saturday night) that i like having these sporadic moments of irresponsibility. i don't mean in the sense that i go get wasted and race my car down the freeway. irresponsibility for me means "man i have to work tomorrow at 6 a.m. but i am still going to go out to these shows and maybe i'll have a beer" i think for 90% of my time, i like to play by the rules. i eat healthy, go to the gym, get to bed early etc. so it works out in the long run. it comes with age, i'm sure, but i used to not have any balance at all.

it also occurred to me (although not for the first time) how much i like being able to come and go as i please. i just can't seem to get my brain around the concept of marriage and kids because i don't think i could stand the committment. does that make me selfish? maybe; but at least i can admit it. it's a bit more complex than just wanting the freedom to go to shows on a weeknight... but that's a different blog for a different time.

http://clothecharlotte.com/

this is something i thought i would throw out there, for anyone who might be interested. the organization is called clothe charlotte. the website is pretty bare because it's a relatively new deal. basically, their aim is to help provide clothing and other items for the homeless. ideally, with the homeless, the ultimate goal would be to get them off the streets. in reality, however, it can't happen over night. this leaves a lot of peopel to suffer the elements which can be especially tough during the winter months.

i heard of clothe charlotte this past sunday at ephesus . i'm still learning more about the organization, but this winter they are doing a "sleeping bag drive" with the hopes of collecting 5,000 sleeping bags to distribute to the charlotte area's homeless. they can be gently used, or brand new. if anyone has a sleeping bag they could donate (or two or three - no limit here!), let me know. they don't have to be anything fancy or spectacular. the goal is to provide something warm for people who may be faced with sleeping outdoors this winter.

i plan to purchase at least one myself, to donate. the only sleeping bag i own is my muppet baby sleeping bag from my childhood.... preeetttty sure i should just keep that, ha! so if you don't have a spare sleeping bag, but would like to help, maybe we could pull our resources together and buy some new ones. if a lot of people would chip in a few bucks, it could really go a long way.

ephesus is working together to collect sleeping bags for clothe charlotte, so i will most likely just pass my bags to them to be passed along to clothe charlotte. so regardless of whether you have a spare to donate, or would like to purchase one to donate, just let me know and i will do all the "labor" of collecting the bag from you and guaranteeing it gets to the right people. my email address is rbrtsnlk@gmail.com if you want to talk more and work something out. if nothing else, please pass this along to your friends and family. the holiday season is just around the corner, which means there are so many areas of need and so many opportunities to serve others. so no worries if you have a cause all your own. but you can still help by spreading the word!

lil bit of this; a pinch of that

lisa moved in this week! i'm pretty optimistic about living with her. my previous roommate... well. i don't know if it's because we were total strangers but it was probably the longest 7 months of my life living with her. i have had strangers for roommates before and it worked fine. this was just different. in any case, she's out of the picture and enter lisa. our house is so cute and cozy thanks to her creativity. she has a sweeeeeeeeeet book collection including tons of bible commentaries which i am pretty excited for. oh, and she has a shera/ he-man puzzle so, you know, wow.

i have a love/hate relationship with facebook. see, the thing is, i don't need a profile and don't really want one. but it's such an easy, convenient way to stay in touch with long distance friends and family. really, in this day in age, it's sometimes the only way to stay in touch. i go thru these bouts where i'm determined to prove it isn't a necessity. of course i don't mean "necessity" like water or air. i would be completely ok if facebook just disappeared entirely. but for a lot my friends, it's their preferred method of communication. there is nothing at all wrong with that; i can understand and appreciate the convenience of it all. so what i'm saying is, in a way, it is a necessity. i guess it depends on how much effort i i am willing to put in to keeping in touch the old fashioned way (carrier pigeons, obviously) and how much effort my friends are willing to put into responding to my efforts. i deactivated my profile a while ago, then went back for a few months. but a few weeks ago i permanently deleted it so there's no chance of me going back. unless i create a new profile which for some reason just seems like too much work. i do still have my twitter account, for why i do not know. and then there's this blog. now that i think about it, one thing i really hate about facebook is all the applications and games and other totally unnecessary features. i can see how some people might enjoy them but i prefer a more streamlined, simple approach to social networking. twitter and blogger are still pretty basic in the purposes they serve. but i swear, the first tweet i get asking me to eat a burger at someone's virtual cafe, i will SNAP.

i'm real excited about the holiday season. i am definitely one of those people who starts listening to christmas music mid-november. i hope the older i get the cheesier i get and thereby will start listening to christmas music sooner and sooner. ultimately, my goal is to be one of those people who listens to it year round. on the real though, i looking forward to the next couple of months. i get super excited about halloween mostly because i know the day after is the first day of the holiday season. i didn't even do anything for halloween this year. that's kind of a lie. i did meet emily out for a bit, and stopped by a friend's house. in what was quite possibly the lamest/easiest halloween costume ever, i dressed in all black and wore a headband with two bent pipe cleaners attached. in case you didn't figure it out yet, i was an ant. i've been thinking a lot lately about where halloween originates and is it really something i want to celebrate or embrace. i came to the the conclusion of no, i don't want to embrace it's origins; but i will never turn down an opportunity to dress up even if i'm a loser ant.

not much else to say. none of this was all that important. OH! i got my first letter from chosen, the kenyan boy that i am sponsoring. he asked me to pray for him to grow up and be a pilot! i bought him his christmas present already. due to processing time, they had to be purchased by nov 1. i got him school supplies and a soccer ball. i really, really, reeeeally want to plan a trip to visit him. compassion international will assist in doing so. i can either go on a group trip and just pay the money to them to cover the cost; or if i do an individual trip, i pay for everything independently but CI will help me plan and prepare. group trips cost right around $3500 and there is one scheduled for kenya in aug 2010. i think around the first of the new year i'm going to start looking into it lots more and make a decision.

simply simple simplicities

i haven't updated this in a while. i guess maybe because i haven't had much to talk about.

in a nutshell, life is good. it's calm and easy going. i have everything i need and a lot of what i want. and i'm so very thankful.