A New Post Up Due To Popular Demand

Who would have thought people actually read my blog!

I knew this already actually. But to have TWO people in the same night ask me to write another entry!? Well, give the crowd what they want!

What will I write about?

My blog is called "Places, please." I named it that because it was going to blog about all the different places that I was going to be at various times. I started it because my friend, "the Bug", inspired me to, and I wanted to please her. I also was in a time of so much change, constantly on the move, with no place to call home. Being able to write about the things I was seeing was helping me.

So, where am I right now? I am sitting in the dining room, an unusual place for me to be blogging, at 12 52 am, people talking around me. It is after a late night snacking time.

Well, they all left, I guess it is bed time? I am left (almost) alone here. I will go to bed, and wake up tomorrow morning to a totally free-of-school day. Not totally free of school WORK of course, but no classes. I cook in the morning at 10, for lunch. I will enjoy it. Good company, cooking for my fellow school mates, also good company.

Blog - have I told you yet? I love this place.

my bad mood today

bad moods.

I am not in them all that often. At least I don't want to be! However, when I am, I want to shout curses, and when I try to do that, it comes out a cry. So I try and stifle that down, then I just get bitterly angry. Sigh. Take deep breaths, and go for a walk. Yes, walks.

I have been going on some nice walks lately, but not enough. The neighbourhoods are so quaint in this area. They have nice old houses and large trees lining the roads. I quite like it.

good mood...

I feel better already.

My Jim and Pam tribute.

I want to be Pam Beasley from "The Office".

She is cute, funny, and clever. EVERYTHING every girl ... wants ... to be?

I mean, that's why Jim likes her so much, right?

Just gotta find ma Jim. With all the same expressions.

And, I would like a shirt like this:

They were just... meant for each other.

Christmas In Bathurst

What a great time I have been having with my shiny friend and her family! So loving and friendly and so funny too. I don't have too much else to say, except that it has been wonderful, better than I could have expected.

One down side: My friends' new (-to-them) car was broken in to; both her purse and wallet as well as my purse and wallet were stolen. Such nice, expensive purses AND wallets! Gah! ALL of my ID cards were in my purse, even my passport and birth certificate. I have nothing to get my other stuff back with. How frustrating. Now it will take all the longer to get new cards. It's mostly just a nuisance.

The upsides of all of that: her great family around to help us by walking around and looking for the bags, they had cell phones so quick calls could be made to police and credit card companies (good thing! her card had already been used at two different places), no camera's were in either purse, her husband's backpack with lots of cash was still there, we were not hurt, only the car's window was broken.

Things are only things.

Loving myself

I was just about to go to bed. Then I started to read, and that nervouse excited feeling overwhelmed me. I knew I had to write something down. I don't want to go into too much background detail, however, I need to say some things before I dive right into my plans for my Christmas break.

I have struggled with self-image issues for most of my teen life, and as I grow older, and even just now, I am realizing this could even mean that I don't love myself. That's a pretty big deal, also quite common I think. It's hard to explain the inner workings of my mind. Quite often people tell me that they like me, love me, and even miss me. One might think this would penetrate my bad thoughts, and sometimes I think it does. I "know" God loves me, but how do Iknow this? I sure don't always feel it. These other thoughts then enter my head about being unlovable and I think how on earth could anyone love me? I am such a mess, a screw up! People often say, "those are lies from the pit of HELL Rosie!" I hate it when people say that, true or untrue.

It was just the other day, when talking to my shiny friend, that the thought occurred to me (funny how it took so very long) maybe the one who doesn't love me, is me?

This is all being brought up in me because of the aforementioned book that I am reading, A Tree Full of Angels. I wish I could buy everyone a copy and have you read it. It is one of those books I have trouble reading alone because I want to discuss every sentence with another person. Here are the pieces that got me thinking about all this:

"When you can lovingly be present to yourself, your presence to others takes on a deeper quality also.

There are many ways we are called to come home to ourselves. There is that part of ourselves that feels ugly, deformed, unacceptable. That part, above all, we must learn to cherish, embrace, and call by name.

... This indeed is coming home to yourself, to face yourself and embrace yourself. Invite yourself into your own abandoned house, abandoned only because you are not at home with yourself. Invite yourself in, then. Sit down at table with your estranged self, estranged only because you've forgotten the real unity that exists within you.

... So, invite yourself in! Treat that self like a beloved member of your household. It is a beloved member. It is you! You've come home" (pp. 6 - 7).

So this is part of my journey with my time off; here in Fredericton, I am going to invite myself in, and love me!

[Another part of the book I so enjoy is how she talks about our "littleness and our greatness, our frailty and our splendor, our poverty and our wealth" (p. 2).]

And maybe, just maybe, those "lies from the pit of hell" are partially thoughts and reminders of my littleness, and maybe then I can look to God and see how I am made GREAT, and see how through Jesus, I am being made GLORIOUS.

I am being "divinized", to use Macrina's words.

Here I go.

In front of the Christmas tree, with Sufjan playing beautiful Christmas music in the background, in my pajama pants, about to read (for PLEASURE!! not for school!).

My shiny friend is about to go down to her studio to finish some pottery projects for Christmas and her sarcastic husband is going to be home soon. I should learn my lines for the play that will be performed at the end of January. I know I should know these lines by now; alas I do not! This is the work I must do today. I am Gwendolyn in a scene from Oscar Wilde's play, "The Importance of Being Ernest". If you are not familiar with it, make yourself familiar. C'est fantastique.

Also, if you are not familiar with Sufjan Stevens, get familiar. Il est fantastique aussi.

Just one more recommendation for the day: the book I am currently reading. A Tree Full of Angels, by Macrina Wiederkehr. It is a book by a nun from Arkansas about "seeing the holy in the ordinary". (insert "Italian kiss from mouth to hand" here) It is wonderful! I would be so bold to say, since I first read it in early 2007, it has changed my life.

All Done. Babies. Christmas.

Well, the time is finally here, and I am finally done. There were moments of no hope, frustration, anger at myself, and sometimes there was light at the end of the tunnel. Of course looking back I think, "Why on earth was I so stressed out?" However, it seems to be the stress that actually keeps me going. Keeps me up until 1, 2, and 3 AM, nights on end. I think last night was the first night in, no over exaggeration, at least two weeks that I went to bed BEFORE 12 30!

My sister is due anytime now. She is having a baby boy. Whenever a woman in my family pops out another kid (and believe me - it happens often; this will be eleven nieces and nephews, with a twelfth coming next year), it is always a bitter sweet thing. I am so happy for them, and to have yet another baby in the family is such a blessing. However, when will I ever get to see them!? How long will it be until we are all together again? The last time our whole family was together was 2006. Since then there has been three additions with two in the tummy still. I get a little depressed when I hear about families getting together for Christmas. I miss mine terribly. I just don't think about it much; I push the thought away because it kind of hurts.

I am spending Christmas in Fredericton with a couple of dear friends this year. It should be great. I can't wait to spend time with other people outside of this wonderful, but small, community here. To get to a bigger city, to not have school work weighing on my mind, to be around people with a new and fresh outlook on life, to just be free to do what I want will be so great! I wish I had loads of extra money lying around to bless my friends with. Why is it I always think that money = blessings or happiness or ... If a person would ask me "Can money buy happiness?" Of course I would say no! But sometimes my thought processes tell me otherwise. It is nice giving people nice things. I like receiving nice things. Christmas is an excuse to do that. Maybe. I also like simply spending time with people and getting to know them more and understanding what Christmas is to them. As I grow older, and especially since coming here to school, I see more beauty and hope and joy in Christmas every year, especially this year. I guess that is all a part of The Plan. Hmmm... I will be thinking about this now. Thank you, blogger.