June 2010

I’m (still) reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What. It’s one of those books that cuts right to the heart of things so sometimes I have to take a break from it and read some fiction or something less thought provoking for a bit. Maybe it is because otherwise it may not hit me as hard. There is really only so much thought provoking you can take.

There’s a phrase in it that I read today talking about how parents can really only hold their children, love their children, because until we get to heaven, all we can do is hold our palms over the wounds. I’m not sure why but that phrase stuck with me. Holding our palms over the wounds. I guess because so often it seems that there should be things, certain feelings or those that are lacking, that I feel we should be able to fix. Some might think it is perhaps sad to think this way but I find it encouraging that there will always be a part of ourselves that cannot be fixed because in reality we are just holding our palms over the wounds until we can be complete again.

I went to church this morning and we sang a song I hadn’t heard before, or at least do not remember having heard. Usually traditional hymns talk a lot about God and use metaphors and when you get to the end of it you’ve sung a very pretty song that you can never quite pin down what it means. Or maybe that’s just me. But this one seemed to say something that made sense:

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?

That may just be a mishmash of thoughts but I suppose to me it all fits together. It reminds me that it’s normal to not feel normal sometimes – this is not our home. But that we have to step up, love the parts that seem unlovable, and do what we can with the time that we have. 

Here comes the rest of the week! 

“I always wanted a happy ending….Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.” – Gilda Radner

(great quote via Cubanalaf)

Nope Edward won’t be there.  Tomorrow I head off to Orlando for the America’s Blood Centers Conference. I’m not going to lie – one of the most exciting things is the chance to stay in a nice hotel. I love nice hotels. Doesn’t this description just sound like heaven:

Indulge in a newly renovated, Balinese-inspired non-smoking guest room that offers the comfortable Sweet Dreams by Doubletree plush top king bed with fluffy, inviting pillows.

Ok maybe that’s just me. Plus, shhh don’t tell, but I like getting a fresh towel every day. Unless they have those signs with cute little dolphins on them telling you that only people who hate trees and dolphins don’t hang up their towel to use it again. Oh the guilt. Considering that my hotel is walking distance from Seaworld they could probably get REAL dolphins to come and guilt trip you into hanging up your towel. (insert foul joke about how they used to use killer whales until that unsightly accident not too long ago …)

I’m also excited to meet other people who work for blood banks and to have the chance to run into Lauren Larsen, President of the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers and all around neat person. When you work with such a niche nonprofit it’s nice to have a chance to chat with other people who know just how difficult it is to explain apheresis in a way that doesn’t highlight the two hours it takes, or who understand that using the word blood “products” is really not as great as saying “components”.

Admittedly I’m super nervous, but ready, to present about social media. My worry is that I love social media, love talking about it, and will probably talk right through the 50 minutes set aside for me. I wonder if someone in the back will hold up a card or if the music will start playing when I have 30 seconds left like they do on all the awards shows …

Guess I’ll have to let you know.

Pat’s brother and sister-in-law (the Denver Bergmans) are getting a new bulldog puppy and Marie took some of the cutest pics ever of the little babies they went to visit. Is there really any better way to illustrate happiness than with a wrinkly faced puppy?

It’s funny because the past few days I have been thinking about writing a blog post concerning patience. It’s been on my mind a lot lately. The difference between inaction and patience. The idea that standing still is not the same thing as inaction. Standing still is an action in and of itself. There is such a thing as purposefully waiting. It makes me laugh because just the fact that I’m saying that means I’ve come a long way in the past few years.

I realized today that being given a time of waiting is a blessing. It gives us time to develop the faith that is sometimes necessary to make it through. Moving quickly sometimes means that answers are given to us before we have had time to realize that no matter what the answer may be we will be ok. Patience reveals to us God’s timing and love.

Sometimes you need to change what you are “best” at on a daily basis.

My birthday will be here before you know it. Perfect gift. (here)

Good: all of the food I ate this weekend. Beaver’s, Baby Barnaby’s Cafe, mom’s cooking, PB and my crepes, smoothies, Ritter’s sundaes. All so good.

Bad: except for the salad from Tossed. Not super impressed. I guess I was comparing it to Salata and Plutos … who only lets you have 4 toppings and makes you pay for cheese?

Good: seeing my sister and Mert on Friday night and getting to chat.

Good: kayaking.

Bad: not bringing snacks along for the kayaking.

Good: seeing a huge rocket at NASA and seeing PB so happy to be around rockets.

Bad: That only encourages PB to want to go up into space in rockets.

Good: relaxing, spending a little bit of time in the sun, spending a lot of time sleeping, and now getting to go read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Bad: When I finish The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest there will be no more Stieg Larsson books … which makes me almost not want to even start this one. Almost.

… to mourn the death of my hard drive. Yes I know I was able to get a new, much improved, hard drive for free (thanks Applecare Protection). I also get a new keyboard and casing which translates into basically a new Macbook. I had all my music and some of my pictures. But the other pictures are all gone.

Some of the ones I will miss:

• baby Sophie pics. There’s a few in particular that are forged in my mind, like our first time meeting her here in Houston. Or from our visit to Pittsburgh.
• hundreds of Glory pictures.
• pictures from my summer in Tennessee or our family reunion in Tennessee.
• San Francisco pictures that never got posted.
• any pics that didn’t make the Facebook cut from my trip to Europe.
• college pictures. Tons of these because let’s face it I took most of them off of Facebook because they were a bit too … drunk. Maybe it is a good thing these are gone.

I try to keep reminding myself that in the past people didn’t have such gigantic collections of photos (like we do now thanks to digital cameras) and it didn’t seem to hurt them. Thankfully I managed to print at least some of my college photos – I have no idea why but I’m glad I did. Just a life lesson that back up plans are a must have! I think I learn that over and over again.

Other than that the weekend was uneventful, you know if you don’t count hanging out with some of my favorite people, planning our trip to Denver next weekend, winning (or at least not losing) at rummy, enjoying the sunshine, shopping, eating good food, and snuggling.

On a reflective note, two years ago my two besties were in San Francisco visiting me! One year ago I was enjoying some last San Francisco fun (Beach Chalet, Nightlife at the Academy, frat fest in the Marina, chocolate sundaes) before getting ready to move back to Houston. One of my favorite things about having a blog is getting to see how time truly does fly but how blessed I have been to have all of the experiences I have had.

Happy Monday!

This Petit Bouton necklace from Plum & Sage.

Slicked back ponytails. (pic)

Raspberries in my lunch. (pic)

The pretty side of Houston. (pic)

Nerdy jokes. Like the comics on xkcd: a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. Perfect.