...about how great this new blog is with all the editing options!! my old one somehow never switched over to the new and improved version. i clicked the 'switch version' button last year, but it sort of just stayed the same for some reason.
turns out, with all these new-fangled options, i still kind of like the same things though. a little brighter, a little bolder maybe.
nevertheless, it's always nice to have options.

...about how happy it makes me to remember my boyfriend. i'll just be tooling along, minding my own business, and a random little memory of him will pop into my head and i'll feel absurdly happy to have him in my life.
he does such a good job at making me feel treasured and honored and delighted in.
i just love that guy.

...about my ridiculous obsession with sugar and chocolate. my body is so annoyingly intolerant of them but i can't just leave them alone. why can't i be addicted to peas or boiled eggs?
maybe it's through the constant consumption of something that you develop an intolerance. perhaps if i ate boiled eggs every day, i would eventually become allergic to them also. hmm.

...about wanting to pray with people more. i love talking with someone and hearing where they're at spiritually. i love praying with them. i sincerely think i hear from god more clearly when i'm listening deliberately to the people around me.
i miss hearing from god. i don't feel like i've been doing much listening lately.

...about being more disciplined. i keep resolving to start exercising again, but then... another week has suddenly gone by -- no go. what in my little brain just decides, 'you know what? today's not the day to start. try again tomorrow.' the whole choice thing is a conundrum to me. at what point do you decide something and why? what pivotal thing happens to motivate you into that decision, taking you out of the thinking and into the action?
brains are tricky.

...about words and how fun they are but how trendy they can be. i love the word 'tricky', but i can only use it so much without feeling like it's over-used. i wish words could stay fresh and new with every use. the word i hear in the halls these days that makes me laugh is 'ballin' -- the basketball guys use it excessively. i guess it means cool or something. they say, 'that's so ballin' or 'he's ballin'...
but then, why are some words worn out and not others? 'the' will never go out of style. it's always got a place. i suppose it's just descriptors that can get old. your standard nouns are the backbone, adjectives are maybe the clothes and hairstyle. and speaking of over-using, i think i severely over-use hyphenated words.

...about expectations. it's so hard to not have them, to just live in the day as it comes and be content. it seems that i don't notice the expectations i've had of people or events or circumstances until they're somehow not met and i'm supremely disappointed. then i spend hours of over-analytical time trying to figure out why i'm so affected. then suddenly i realize my expectations had not been met, hence the emotional trauma.
it'd be so much easier if people just knew what we wanted and we knew what they wanted and we all just made each other happy.

actually, come to think of it, that'd probably be much harder. if i knew all the ways i could meet the expectations of all my friends and family and i tried to meet them, i'd probably be run ragged. there's no way i could be everything to everyone at all times.

i suppose in the grand scheme of things it's easier to just get used to disappointment. or learn what to do with it anyways. i always forget the very handy idea that our emotions were made to draw us closer to god. i read a book called 'the cry of the soul' by dan allender about that very thing. he says it's not wrong to feel angry or sad or lonely or jealous... it's how we respond to those emotions that gets us in trouble. he says god created us with those emotions for a reason -- to clue us in to our need for him in the moment.
that's kind of neat, if you think about it. when i feel lonely, it's because god made me with the capacity to feel that way so that i would run to him with my sadness. sometimes i fail to see how god 'pursues my heart' as this generation likes to say he does... but this is a prime example of that very action. as he was knitting me together 29 years ago he was already putting in me the capacity for such deep emotion. he was planning the ways he would be pursuing me my whole life long.

i like that.