My life according to...ME

Being as addicted to this Blogg thing as I am, it's starting to make my life seem kinda dull. I keep wanting to post but can't think of anything interesting to talk about! I just got stung by a bee though, that's pretty interesting to me. I've only been stung one other time at my neighbors house, but now I was just sitting outside in the sunshine while the baby slept and I crossed my ankles and I guess there was a bee inbetween them because it hurt! So now it's all white and puffy...I don't think I'm susposed to do anything about it am I? I went to the doctors on Monday for a "routine" (once every 8 or 9 years in my case) physical exam. Yikes, it was crazy but they ended up having to draw a bunch of blood in order to check my cholestoral because of my dad's heart attack and now my arm has this sick bruise on it where I was shot. It has this big purple line running through it, hope that isn't bad. And then today... I had an eye exam cause I didn't like my other contact lenses so she gave me new ones that are $50 a box per eye! YIKES! I just bought one box of each so when I get them I can look on-line for cheaper ones.

My mom's family is coming into town starting this weekend. That is pretty exciting. We have an extended family reunion in Canada next weekened for a couple days so we decided that most of the closer family would just come to our house the week before and the week after for our own family reunion cause we haven't seen them in forever! I'm excited to see them again, I wish more cousins were coming but we will still have fun. I love having people I know come to Grand Rapids where I've lived all my life and show them around and stuff. Well I suppose I should be off finding better things to do with my time right now...hope you all are havin' and great day!

Free to Disagree...2

Well this started out as a reply to comments on my last post on this book but I just kept typing and typing so I decided to just post it:) Something Jen's comment made me think of was at another point in this book the author talks about gossip. Gossip was one of those things that i never felt I had a clear definition to, so I started to ignore it. I read what he wrote on it and I haven't forgotten it since. So not to preach at you or anything... but maybe it'll help you a little too:) He says, "The sin of gossip occurs when a person gives and unauthorized, distorted, or false report that influences another person to form a bad opinion about the person being talked about." I never thought about it that way, it is so true though. That definition is showing the power that our words totally have! Just by saying ONE thing about someone, we can cause a person to have a flase opinion about someone else so easily! Whether we are talking about our friends, parents, siblings... He also suggested some questions one should ask themselves in order to detect or become more aware of gossip/slander. (It's hard for me to ask these cause I tend to judge the person who's gossiping and I forget that I am just as bad as them, hopefully I can use these just to kindly talk to my friends and maybe try and make them aware, as well, when they are gossiping.) "

1. Why are you telling me this?
2. Where did you get this information?
3. Have you gome to the people named?
4. Have you personally checked out all the facts?
5. Can I quote you if I check this out?"

"(This) reminder just might be the dam that holds back the rampaging river of gossip."

bUdGEts...

So I FINALLY started working on my very first budget last night. I don't know why it took me so long, I guess it probably had to do with the fact that I didn't think I was a bad handeler of my money. Which compared to some people, I'm not, but none the less I guess it is wise to have a budget to help me reach my goals and help me be a wise steward of what I've been given. Just trying to balence it has been really hard. I'm trying to balence it using the least amount of money I could make in a week to be sure I have enough each month, but it has been SO hard making sure I have enough in every catagory. Before the days of the budget I enjoyed "splurging" every once and a while on things like clothes, spa, vacations, ect... yet I always had pleanty money to pay my bills at the end of the month, so I didn't see a problem with that. I guess the reason I'm having a hard time now is because I have catagories I am putting money into each week like car repair/replace, doctor and dentist, and those are things that don't happen everyday. So I know I will be thankful I set money aside when the time comes to fix those brakes and get new tires. I guess the more I think/talk about budgets the more I applaude them. It is going to make me so much more aware of what I "need" as opposed to what I really want. I'm sure I'll make mistakes and get confused and lazy in it all, but hopefully I'll keep it up and the Lord will be glorified through the way I spend this money. AND hopefully I will be able to afford many, many more trips out to Jackson Hole...or just maybe one LOOOONNNNNGGGGG trip out there;). Or maybe just get married so I have an excuse to move somewhere...don't exactly know why marrying someone would necessarily give me the excuse to move away, but hey - it just might! So thanks again to my "financial advisor" out there, yer makin it all happen!
Baruk Hashem

Are my convictions more important than my relationships?

I was at the Christian bookstore the other day and picked up this book called "Free To Disagree" by John Wecks. The subtitle, "Moving Beyond the Arguments Over Christian Liberty" was more so what caught my eye. As I read through it this past week it made me aware of so many situations that are avoided because we want to avoid conflict, when there is a perfectly Biblical way to deal with these areas. The author calls them "neutral issues." They are issues like length of hair, style of dress, food and drink, and types of recreation. He says so many good things but what I think he really wants to get across to the reader is that there are so many issues that are neutral, even to God, yet we as believers put way too much of our focus on them. Churches split because they can't decide on style of worship, fellow believers judge one another because one feels it is OK to dance and the other does not. All this is going on while many of the church members are gossiping and having affairs. I realized how often I find myself angry towards, or judging people in my own church body for things like music, drinks, clothing style, and communicating style. I really need to become more aware of the difference between issues which are neutral and issues which are taught clearly in the Bible. The biggest thing is that when we discuss neutral issues we have to not allow ourselves to become angry just because someone else doesn't hold the same opinion as us. There are many things that, as a believer, I am free to participate in although I must take into consideration the weaker believer who may be caused to stumble by my doing something which is completely fine with my conscience. It was a challenging and enlightening book, I highlighted a ton of things which means I still only retained maybe 3% of the whole book but it was so good!

So about that belly dancing class I've been wanting to sign up for...:) hehe

Mountain Chic

Man, i can't even describe the way my heart felt when I got my first panoramic view of those Rocky Mountains on Friday. I got into the Denver airport an hour late, ran to go get my rental car (sweet silver Neon) and I was off, driving RIGHT into the mountains. I guess one way of explaining my aw, excitment, and distraction would be to tell you that I missed two of my exits and then went right through the town my friend Tiff lives in! And Tiff is what this story is all about, not the mountains.:) Tiffany works as a wrangler for a Christian summer camp called Camp IdRaHaJe (ID RAther HAve JEsus) which is right near Bailey, CO. She did the same thing there last summer and loves it SO much! I'm not a big fan of being near horses, they kinda freak me out, but it was neat to see what she does all day. The camp is beautiful and so is the horse pasture. They have like 40 horses they take care of and sadle up each day for trail rides. It doesn't seem like we got to do a whole lot while we were there but we did some things and the rest of the time it was just SO cool being in the mountains! We hiked once, rode horses around the arena, drove around looking for more hiking...just chilled outside and on the last night we went in her boss's hot tub. Tiff had to work a couple of the days, which I wasn't really planning on, but I had a good book, and was content just sitting in the sun by the barn. So all in all it was a great time getting to see her again and see Colorado again.

Got a little hiking in while we were there! (me and tiff)

I had a Colorado License Plate!
I was actually inspired by something too while I was there! Besides the fact that I am going to move out there someday...;) I don't know why I never really thought of this before, but I really want to get involved in a kids summer camp somewhere and do the videography for them. If you've ever been to summer camp you know the things they do, they walk around with the video camera getting all the kids/activities on tape and do a funky editing job, stick it to some music and ba-boom, the kids have something cool to watch at the end of the week! I e-mailed a media guy from a summer camp where i used to go and asked him about what he does there and asked if I could maybe come "apprentice" there for a week or whatever if they give me time off work this summer. Hopefully next summer I could do that full-time! Alright, one more hilarious random story and then it's time fore me to go to bed. Today me and my sister took McKenna (the little 16 month old I nanny) to the mall, she was kinda crabby so I had let her walk by herself inbetween us. Well we were walkin down the hall and we pass infront of this store that is playing this funky, really upbeat music, pretty loudly. All of a sudden she stops, right in the middle of the entrance to the store, hands me her sippy cup and starts dancing. I SO wish I had the video camera because I can't even begin to explain to you how hilarious she looked! First she started bobbing her head back and forth, like i taught her a couple weeks ago. Then she adds in this adorable little booty dance, her arms started moving next and she started doing that in circles. We were laughing SO hard, i face was all red and I was almost crying! I don't know how many people saw it, but it was just so funny. Alright well I better get going now, I MIGHT BE GETTING A COMPUTER TOMORROW!!! YIPPPPEEEE!!