Me? Homesick? Never! Or so I thought...

This past weekend, at Fall Breakaway, it just hit me. Out of nowhere. I was lying in bed, just thinking about...well, now I can't even remember...and I suddenly got homesick. I just wanted to go back to being a kid again, when my brothers and I all lived at home with my parents. When we used to take family vacations every summer. When we actually interacted with each other...Now we're lucky if we are all together even one day out of the year. It was this train of thought that made the tears come. I wanted to just let myself cry, but I didn't want anyone to hear me.

Maybe I've been suppressing it the last few years, but I've never wanted to go home so badly. I never wanted to go home before because my parents were in Ohio and there was nothing for me there except them. But now they're back in Lake Charles, and I feel like a freshman who wants to go home every weekend, even if just to have my laundry done for me and to have a home cooked meal or two. Even when I go home, it's not the same. My brothers aren't there. One still lives in Lake Charles, but I don't get to spend much time with him when I'm there because he works and sleeps. The other one I got to see when I visited in Ohio, but I still didn't get to spend much time with him, and now he's in Pennsylvania.

I'm sorry I don't have any inspiring Jesus ending to this post, because it is quite depressing. I guess I just needed to let it out because when I think to much about it, I always want to cry.

My body hates me...

...and I hate my body. That's why I'm putting it through this torture. And hopefully by doing so we will start hating each other less and less. Today was awful. It was, officially, my first day of training for a half marathon. Technically, it was supposed to start yesterday with running, but my roommate didn't feel good so we vowed to make it up on Friday. So today was cross training day and we rode our bikes for 30-40 minutes. Well, she probably did. I rode, took a break, rode, took a break, walked up some hills, rolled down some hills, and died twice. I don't think I ever want to ride my bike again. Actually, that's not true. Just maybe not on such steep hills.  And it's not like these hills are particularly steep, I'm just so out of shape and have never really ridden a bike on hills at all. I'm from flat country. Plus my gears kind of suck.

Tomorrow is running, and I have a feeling I'm going to die a few more times. But hopefully as the weeks pass I'll get better and better, and my body won't hate me so much. And maybe on the next cross training day I'll swim laps instead.

I forgot. You ever forget? Happened to me.

I was going to blog about something the other day because I remember thinking, "Hm, that's a good thing to blog about, I should totally blog about that. Yeah, I think I will blog about that." But now, for the life of me, I can not remember what it was. Maybe I'll remember somewhere in the middle and totally interrupt my stream of consciousness.

I wonder if it's the thing I journaled about the other day and just decided to journal instead of blog so no one would read it...Il est possible...

Anyway, so I'm apparently about to start training for a half marathon with my roommate. And the more I think about it, and the closer it gets to next week (which is when I plan to start, keyword: plan) I keep thinking to myself, "What am I THINKing? What am I getting myself into? There's no way I could ever run a half marathon...This is ME we're talking about! I'm fat and lazy and just sit on the couch all day. I hate, above all exercise (except lunges of course), running. I'm so out of shape, and I feel for my roomie who is probably going to struggle just to get me into running shoes. Not to mention I hate getting up early...AND I'll probably end up giving up halfway through, if I even make it that far..." And so on and so forth. All these negative thoughts keep coming into my head. It's almost like all those other times when I plan to start exercising or working out, but I never get serious about it. But this time is serious because I have someone keeping me accountable, and it's making me anxious. It's taking me off guard. It's like, wait, I really have to do this? I'm really going to do this? Really? Really?


But I know those thoughts are just coming from the devil. He's putting those thoughts into my head to scare me. To make me back down. Because if I back down, even with an accountability partner, then I will probably never get on an exercise plan, I'll never lose weight, and I'll never find a man!! Okay, that was a joke, but for real, I know I need to get healthy and this is my chance. I have someone who I KNOW will make me stick to it because she already knows what race she's running. And at first I thought I would just train with her and not actually run a race, but apparently she has bigger plans for me than I do. Which isn't saying much...

So I'm training for a half marathon. Thirteen-point-one miles. I have ~six months. All that's left to do now is pick a training plan. And get some new shoes.

What did I miss?

I feel like I'm missing out on something amazing. I'm not, but at the same time I am. I was just catching up on my friends' blogs, and two of them, on opposite sides of the globe, mentioned something about how they are in a scary place compared to the US. One is in Zambia, and one is in Guatemala. Both of those places have things we don't have to deal with here in the states. Diseases, snakes, and other dangerous things and people. But being in those places, being in those situations, makes them depend on God more and learn and grow closer to Him. And here I am, safe, in my comfort zone. Not being dependent, not learning, and not growing. I'm sitting. Just sitting.

Am I just being selfish? I want to go overseas. I want to go to a third world country and live in a tent. I want to see God in the things I normally don't. I want to learn and grow in the way I see my friends learning and growing. But maybe my motive is skewed. Maybe that's the wrong reason to go. The reason should be to share Jesus with people who don't know him, not to keep him to myself. Don't get me wrong, we should always be leanring and growing, but it's not all about us. We know where our place is when we leave this world, but there are people out there who won't be meeting us there unless we tell them. Our goal should always be to share. Share our knowledge, but more importantly, share His love. AND it should be everywhere we go, to everyone we meet. It doesn't matter if we are in a third world country, living in a tent, or if we're in our hometown, safe from the things we don't even know about. The WORLD is our mission field.

But sometimes it's hard to make ourselves see God in every day things. But He's there. Everything I have He has given me. He is so gracious, and I am so grateful to be where I am and have the things I have. Sometimes I forget to thank God for the things I have. And He's given me so much, I couldn't even name it all! Recently, He's even given me the thing my subconscious (and several times my conscious!) self had been praying for the past two years: my family is coming home. I feel like that move to Ohio was good for very few things. I know God has His reasons, reasons I don't realize (and might never realize), but I am just SO GLAD that He's bringing my parents back. I knew He would, I just didn't know when it would be, but now He is.

And I just can't stop thinking about all the changes that are going to take place. Good changes, that is. And, well, some that aren't good or bad, but changes nonetheless. For one, hopefully people will stop harrassing me about being "from" Ohio. I'm not going to count the rest because I fear I may lose track. You'll have to forgive the rant that is about to take place because I don't think I'll have much control over it.

Ready, go.

I'm going to be HOME for breaks. I say home because Ohio was never home to me, but LC will be HOME. I'll get to see Simone more! (And maybe, hopefully, some other friends!) We're going to be in a fancy new house, hopefully with a pool!! Mom will get to go to Mistletoe and Moss again! We'll be closer to Josh, and he'll actually have family around again, poor thing. I'll have to get a new license and new plates, but it won't be a problem renewing my license for my 21st birthday. I'll be able to go see my friends' bands when they perform. I'll have a bank where I can easily deposit checks on a weekend. I'll be able to go home any ole weekend I want!! My parents can come to football games, heck, they can get SEASON TICKETS and come with our old neighbors. My mom will have friends. I will have friends! My dad will have friends! Casa Ole. Tony's pizza. Orange Leaf (which is new, and hasn't even opened yet)!! PLP, Luna, Darrell's. The restaurants in general! Our church family...I don't have to pretend to enjoy going to church functions anymore. Just...EVERYTHING. Just everything! I miss it all. Every single thing. Perhaps not all the people, but most of them for sure. I just can't wait! The excitement is so great I feel like I'm going to burst! It's 2 am and I don't think I could sleep right now if I tried!!!

Maybe writing this blog wasn't such a great idea after all.

Atypical blog or a typical blog?

So I've looked at a few other blogs, trying to figure out how this blogging thing is supposed to work, and it seems as though each blog is centered around a thought or a main idea. I guess that's what makes them interesting, right? I mean, who would read a blog that simply recounted the events of the day?

"Today I woke up. Then I had cereal for breakfast. Then I called to see if I'm supposed to work today. Then I sat on my butt blogging about nothing..."

No, no. No one wants to read that. At least, not about my life. I mean, big deal events, yes. Birth, death, marriage, etc. But I think most people want to read something that makes them think. Blogging (or writing in general) is a creative outlet, meant to be centered around original ideas, much like painting or composing music. So I guess from now on I'll probably try to think of something witty to talk to myself about (since I actually don't have any followers...yet).

Just another lazy day afternoon...

It's so easy to get sucked into a lazy day full of nothing but sitting on the couch, watching Lifetime movies (oddly addicting), and bonding with Artemis. Especially in the summer, and when work hasn't started yet. It's not that I haven't forgotten all the things I need to do - finish unpacking, put clothes away, start my summer list of things to do - I just haven't gotten around to doing them. I guess I should probably get on it when this movie ends. And of course Artemis is no inspiration. All she does is sleep all day. Looks like I'm on my own on this one...

Maybe I'm not meant to do this...

I have had so much trouble trying to start this stinkin' blog, it's ridiculous. For starters, apparently someone else in this universe has the same username on a google account as I do on a hotmail account, because, to my knowledge, it isn't me. So I had to use a different email account, one I don't particularly like to use. Secondly, I tried to design the template the way I wanted it three times, and it didn't work the first two. I still need to fix the font the way I want, but I'll do that later when I won't feel like chucking my laptop off the balcony.

Now that the ranting is over, I'm not really sure what to blog about. I'm really only doing this because I made a deal with my friend. She started one, so I'm starting one, and I think we were going to start one together, but we won't even get to see each other all summer and we don't even know what to blog about. So I guess I could blog about life, which could be quite uneventful and boring. Or I could blog about... my trying to eat healthy and lose weight (if I ever start...). Or I could blog about... the books I read (if I ever read them...). Or I could blog about... artsy projects (if I ever complete them...). I guess I'll just go with the flow for now and see what happens. Sounds good.