January...

January. 

It's a time for fresh starts, new goals, new dreams. I love this time of year! Anything seems possible!

I've always been a goal maker. I get excited about the possibilities of new challenges, viewing each one as a new adventure. Being a part of launching something makes me giddy at times.

However, finishing them? Well, that's a whole different story. Notice in the previous paragraph I didn't say "goal-completer." That's the part that gets me. Every. Stinkin'. Time.

I usually hit March, and by then, I'm like the demotivator posters, looking at the world cynically and disappointed in myself once again, paralyzed by my inability to pick myself up and get back on the right path.

One of my favorite jobs was working on project launch when I worked for a local paper. My boss at the time sat me down, and said, "Kortni, we'd like you to edit a brand new paper for us." You would've thought it was Christmas, I was so pumped. But then, two years into the position, and I couldn't do it anymore, and I was on to something new.

I couldn't tell you how many unfinished craft projects are in my home right now. They're just sitting there, waiting to be made into something spectacular. Except, well, the vision was only half-realized.

So, this year, I only made one goal, and that was to take whatever I start, and not go on to something new until I complete it. In the words of Larry the Cable Guy, I'm going to "git 'er done" in 2012. There will be no half-done! There will be no giving up! And it's going to be great!

But, what about you? What are your goals for 2012?

Thanksgiving....

Today, I'm thankful for my niece and nephews...and to celebrate my brother's kids, we went out for a hike and photo shoot for a little while. :) Here are some of my favorites.

Spiritual Health Food

We all know that eating fruits and vegetables are good for us. Those leafy greens give us energy and those juicy plump grapes make us strong and healthy.

I once went to this health seminar a friend invited me to, and the woman speaking (I can't remember her name, or I would quote her) said one of the most interesting things about eating fruits and vegetables I'd ever heard. Now, I'm not a nutritionist, nor would I ever claim to be an expert on eating nutritiously, but what she said made sense.

She said that the reason we should eat vegetables is that they help protect us. The tomato, for example, sits out in the sun all day, yet it doesn't wither and burn. It takes the sun's energy, and instead of drying up, turns it into food in order to grow and ripen into something delicious.

So, her logic, and I'm sure she probably had some sort of science behind it, was that if we eat fruits and vegetables, we take on those characteristics. Her conclusion was that if we eat properly, we would be be able to better fight off the ill effects of our environment, i.e. being less susceptible to sunburn if we eat more tomatoes. For a fair-skinned blond who wears SPF 85 on a regular basis, this got my attention.

All I could think of was..."Interesting."

While, it didn't make me change my eating habits, I saw some spiritual truths there. In John 15:5 it says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him it is he who bears much fruit much for apart from me nothing you can do."

While we can delve very deeply into why God compares Christian living to fruit, the most obvious is the more we partake of His goodness, the more we will be like Him. As we abide in Christ, the more we are able to show His love, fight off temptation and crave knowing Him more.

So, Lord, let me partake of You today, and bear your goodness.

Shouldn't I have this figured out by now?!?

For the life of me, I can't figure out how to balance working (more than) full-time, friends, church, and being the domestic engineer of my home. Inevitably, if I try and do one well, the others suffer.

Most of the time, it's my responsibilities at home. Right now, as I look around, I swear there's at least an inch of dust on everything, my belongings are scattered. And don't even get me started on my bathroom. It's just disgusting. And I have people coming over in five hours.

So, I'm doing what I always do at this time: scrambling and cleaning the fastest way possible. (Well, after I write this blog post anyway.)

Inevitably, I get my house as clean as I can for people to see it, and make my resolve to keep a schedule and be better. But there's one flaw in my plan: I fail. And my house within two weeks (or sooner) is in shambles again.

But, as I think about this problem as it relates to the rest of my life, I am startled by what a good analogy it is to how we view sin. Sometimes, I think I can just clean up my sin issues on my own. And to a certain extent I can. I can make the decision to be a better person. I can say to myself, "Hey, you know, you're hurting people by doing that."

In fact, if I had never prayed at a young age to receive Christ as my savior, and then later decided to dedicate my life to Christian service when I was a teen-ager, I would be a different person.  It's those decisions that sparked spiritual change in my life.

But the challenge comes when I try to continue carry out those decisions on my own day after day. The fatal flaw in that plan is that I'm leaving God out of the picture. And then, time after time, day after day,  I will most certainly fail. Because it's Christ who holds me up. On my own power I can do nothing. I can't conquer sin by just making decision. Just like I can't keep my house clean by just cleaning when I need to do it. It has to be a daily battle.

So today, I dig deep into God, and I pray: "Lord, hold me up where I fail. God, help me seek you as I make decisions for you. And selfishly, help me to clean my house!

Oh ye of little faith...

I was on Facebook today, and there was this picture of my friend's son, laying flat on the see-through floor in the Sear's Tower in Chicago, looking in amazement at the ground beneath him. If that floor broke, there would be certain death.

And as I looked at that picture, I was just amazed how he had no fear. None. He was just there chillin' on the floor.

I admired his brazen ability to look at the ground below in wonder, and thought "what a perfect analogy to how I should look at my future in Christ."

While God doesn't promise a life without hardships and struggle, He does promise a life with Him, and we can be secure in that. Too many times, I look at my future as a single woman in her 30s and I feel fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of losing my job. Fear of losing my friends. Fear of heartbreak. Fear that all these floors of glass I have set my hopes and dream on, will break

So, today, I want to face my future like I'm just chillin' on a glass floor. Not scared, not fearful, without apprehension. Thanks Adlai for such a perfect picture of faith.

New and interesting facts about myself...

I really didn't have an idea for this post, so I thought I'd just bullet point some recent happenings in my life.

• I recently started taking guitar lessons. Did you know that learning guitar hurts? Literally. I have nasty calluses on my left hand fingers. So far, I've learned five songs and three strum patterns. I'm a rock star.

• My sister came home for Christmas with her husband and two kids. My nephew, Sawyer, loves cars, and has seen it too many times to count. He has like seven cars from the movie, and when you watch the movie, you have to watch through the credits to the "real end" of the movie. He's smart and his smile can melt your heart. My niece, Lucy, instantly warmed up to me, and is amazingly cute. Especially when she's saying mamamamama and dadadadada over and over again. *sigh* I think a trip to Kansas is in order for the Spring. I just don't see these kids enough.

• I turned 31 December 22. I had the best birthday. I got birthday cards at work. Birthday cards in the mail. That night, all my friends gathered to have a birthday dinner with me at 84 East. We ate great food, reminisced about old times, and had so much fun. I couldn't help but spend the whole night smiling. I've been missing my friends who are married, and that night was a great way to reconnect with them. They are fun, they care about me, and they really helped make my night very special.

 

• I am looking at going back to school for Web Development/Design. I've really wanted to go back to school for a really long time, and it looks like it might happen soon! Just waiting to see which program works the best with my schedule and budget. I'm really excited about it, but also really nervous. So many things to do...and it might take me forever. However, I'm excited about going back to school, and actually getting a degree in something I'm really interested in and will use in my job. 

So, that's what's been going on with me. So much going on! I love being busy, but hate not being able to keep up with blogging about it all!!!

Happy Thanksgiving...

I'll preface this post with the fact that my family on my mom's side is from middle-of-nowhere Michigan, where most people either work in car factories or are farmers. My Grandpa, for example, did both. They're good, hard-working people, and they like things simple. I love my roots, and I think that they gave me a good start in life. However, after living where I've lived for the last 10 years, I just find it humorous that this was the "nice" (read: only place open) place to go for Thanksgiving in middle-of-nowhere Michigan. 

 This year's Thanksgiving resembled a really bad wedding reception. You know the kind, where you don't really know anyone at your table, the reception hall is crowded, has bad lighting, and the music, well, it doesn't even deserve to be called that, so we'll call it muzak. You get the picture. Actually I wish I had taken pictures. But, I didn't want to offend the relatives.

I'll start with the hall where it was held. First of all, it used to be a roller rink. Yes, a groovin' roller rink. I went to the roller rink when I was in junior high. It smelled like old shoes and nachos.  They must have thought a roller rink was a perfect start to a reception hall. It has a big open room, probably a rockin' sound system to play some hip tunes, and a nice wood floor for dancing.With a few modifications, it could be a good start to a nice banquet hall. However, I'm pretty sure the restaurant that took over this roller rink didn't make many modifications.

They put a good coat of paint on the place. But they installed carpet and painted the pretty wood floor. And I'm pretty sure all the original lighting, was not removed. Not only was it not removed, they actually used some of it for lighting the nice banquet hall. Now that was some interesting ambiance for the evening. There were running lights around the perimeter of the ceiling, you know, for soft lighting. And then when the muzak started going, they used the colored lights on the ceiling to give it a party feel.

Ah, the muzak, where do I start? It was one guy. With a keyboard. And a drum loop. He was mellow. And he was just a little annoying when he was doing Christmas classics. It was when he tried to do something a little more upbeat that he was just laughable. Like when he tried to sing Mustang Sally. With his keyboard. And his drum loop. Oh, and did I mention he had a tip jar? Don't get me started on his tip jar. The only thing I'm grateful for is that he didn't try and do Justin Beiber.

Now, once you got past the decor, it was decent food. And it was nice to see family I only see once or twice a year. So, all in all, it was a very nice holiday. In the middle of nowhere. In a former roller rink.