hell on earth

last night in Bible study Josh talked about fear and anxiety. Abraham was a great example because fear and anxiety is always rooted in not trusting God. Abraham was given all these promises from God, Himself, and he turned right around and didn't believe the promises fully by the decisions he made and by some of his actions. Josh asked us what our biggest fear was. what caused the biggest amount of anxiety in our lives. we broke up into smaller groups and discussed. the way he got us to answer, was he told us to answer the question, 'what would your hell on earth be?' that helped narrow it down a little, but i do know that there are many things that cause fear and anxiety. i answered that my hell on earth would be a world where everyone disapproved of me. i am a people pleaser. i base my decisions and actions around what is easiest for other people and what will make them like me the most. someone else in my group mentioned theirs would be if everyone started off assuming that he was wrong. i totally understood and adopted that that one as my own. it bothers me (and yes, it's all from pride) when someone doesn't give me a fair chance to possibly be right about something. and if that weren't enough, i felt i needed to add another. someone else mentioned their hell on earth is receiving no glory. he feels frustration when the wrong people get glory and he feels like he's trying to do good things and gets cast under the mat. again, it's all in pride, and we all agreed with that... but how often so i do that as well? i get frustrated when people don't notice my attempts at trying to be good and 'better' than other people.

so that'd be my hell on earth. now that i've recognized those few things, i need to keep them in my mind. i need to realize when i am letting them control me. i need to pray. God already knows i keep doing it. i'm sure i've frustrated Him with it plenty of times.

SURPRISE!

SOOO... I actually surprised D for his birthday. His birthday was Thursday and we went out to dinner in Roanoke which was fun. Friday, after his last day of work, he and his buddy, Stone, were going fishing for a few hours. I decided that would be a great night to get people together and try to surprise him. I called Stone up and we decided on a way to get Dennis to go over to Stone's house after fishing (and a back-up plan in case he didn't want to) and I made up a couple excuses saying I would be busy around the time they were finishing up fishing so that he wouldn't want to hang out with me... because naturally, he ALWAYS does. =) I was able to get off work a couple hours early, started making the cake at my house and then met my friend Kristi at Stone's to start working on the pizzas. There was quite a bit involved in making them because I wanted them all to be from scratch (minus the secret, EASY, pizza dough recipe). We had all the pizza crusts pre baked and toppings on them and cake frosted by the time Stone called saying Dennis was about 5 minutes away. It was a fun surprise and the pizza's were a big hit, exactly what I wanted.

Roasted eggplant and olive pizza with provolone cheese and fresh parsley.

A goat cheese and zucchini pizza with fresh basil.

And my new favorite was the fresh mozzarella and asparagus.

And how can we have Dennis's birthday without something chocolate and peanut butter?

i don't wanna grow up

sometimes i just don't want to grow up. i really like my life at the age i am. i have enough responsibility to feel well....responsible, and enough fun and energy to enjoy my age. vacation time at work is always an issue for me. there never seems to be enough, no matter how many i am allowed. my co-worker just returned from a week's 'vacation' and when i asked him how it was, he said he read two books and was bored the rest of the time. my other two co-workers recently took vacation time to college hunt with their children. i was so appalled at each. now, as i am typing this, however, i realize that where i am currently at in life affords me to be a selfish person. i don't have anyone that i need to give up my time for - i can use it however i please. someday i may be married and someday i may have children. when that time comes, i will not be selfish and will use my vacation time not on me, but centered on them. for now - i don't wanna grow up. is that bad?

green thumb 2010

This is my potted garden (minus the cilantro which is living on the back deck, for now). From front to back we have basil, mixed greens, and my incredibely large zucchini plants. It's so fun to see your little seeds prosper =)

This is my zucchini plant, the flowers just opened up today and thought it looked pretty tropical! The leaves are SO huge and beginning to take over our sidewalk but I have no other sunny place for them. I would love for them to produce veggies for me, they are looking promising! Check out how big the leaves are compared to my little feet!

motivation

Main Entry: mo·ti·va·tion
Pronunciation: \ˌmō-tə-ˈvā-shən\
Function: noun
Date: 1873
1 a : the act or process of motivating b : the condition of being motivated
2 : a motivating force, stimulus, or influence : incentive, drive


Here's my question for you. I have always looked at motivation as, some people are just very self motivated and some people are not. I saw it as something that came natural to some people and others would never 'become' motivated. What do you think? Do you think that someone who isn't self motivated is always going to be that way? Or can they work on 'becoming' motivated people? Thoughts? Comments?