1. Breakfast.
2. Water.
3. The shower.
4. Getting reacquainted with good friends after a few months.
5. My pastor’s teaching.
6. Honest conversation about the condition of my heart.
7. Role playing an interview in class and owning it.
8. The hope that is offered through grace.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. – 1 Corinthians 15:10

9. New mercies every day.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. – Lamentations 3:22&23

10. Thunderstorms.
11. Brooke Fraser and her music.
12. Finding a rabbit outside the mall.

I would apologize for the lack of postage but I’m really over apologizing for things. 

1. The weather has been quite ridiculous: good for some, awful for me.  I hate the heat.  But it’s given me a chance to break out the good ol’ cut offs and a nasty pair of coral shorts I adore, which makes me happy.  It also gives everyone a chance to have a conversation, which is good if you work in a place where customer relations is key.  Everyone has something to say about how hot it is, and I like to ramble about how much I don’t like it.  I am blessed though to work in a place with central air and a beer cooler, not to mention live with a Nun that made sure we got our air conditioners installed last week.  Just in time!
2. Speaking of work, we had a team meeting this past week.  I am officially in charge of changing the signs in the windows, which means I get full creative responsibility and the allowance to put products on sale.  What it means is that I have a “thing” at work, the same way there’s a Beer guy and a Grocery guy and a Wine person, I’m the Signs girl.  I take it to mean that I get to exercise my advertising and marketing abilities in a similar way I try to when pushing a product on someone but with arts and crafts time (JFL would be so proud!).
3. To combine these two things (work and the weather) I would like to mention that the drinks that I’ve been creating are really pretty perfect for this season!  I’ve discovered an amazing sangria recipe and doctored it to my pleasing and now I’m considering putting it in a book and just naming it “Dirty Sean’s Drinks” and then selling it for millions.  I got to make the sangria for wine tasting at work, and the customers and most of the staff agreed that it was better than the one my boss made.  I’m just saying, it’s that good.
4. I got the chance recently to try to reconnect with my sister, and that’s been a pretty wonderful thing.  She’s got a bit of a spot in her marriage, the kind of spot that will take a little google searching to find the right way to remove, but she’s far from throwing it away.  She’s always been a trooper, and I’ve always respected her for being able to take responsibility for things and actually get things done.  Now that she and her husband are teaming up like never before, things will be a little harder.  But I know that they’ll make it through, because God doesn’t let things like this break.  He uses them.
5. Reconnecting with friends is great too, I got to have some solid quality time with Lumberjack and an afternoon chilling with Chola (whose make-up reminded me of a chola that day, and so now she has a nick-name).  I even got to go visit Seth Cohen in Boston for dinner, which is really good because he’s going to China for a month, and am trying to get together with a certain dancer but our schedules are conflicting.  I adore each of them and am so glad to have them in my life.
6. New friends are great too, like my work buddies and Tink, who all like to come over for a few beers on my front porch on friday nights every once and again.  We call it Porch Sessions.  We talk about life and God and old cartoons and everything.  Usually I end up laughing my ass off, which is really nice.
7. This week I got to babysit a friend’s son and he was super adorable.  We went to the park, where I managed to get my first sun-burn of the season, and he played well with others.  Apparently he doesn’t always play well with others, so yes, that’s notable.  One of them was telling us about his little brother, who is a Tobbler, and about his mom, whose name is Alana.  He said he sometimes calls her mom, but sometimes he calls her Alana too.  I’ve missed the common sense of children.  He told a kid’s grandma that I was his “visitor”.  I told him that I’m his babysitter.  Or, since he’s not a baby, I am his sitter.  And he said that he liked babysitter better.  I sat on a swing and he promptly got up and started pushing me on it.  It was really precious, and after when he was walking away I thanked him for pushing me, and he replied with “you’re welcome.”
8. I have begun an exploration of a terrifying and unknown frontier: a relationship. I’m still on my guard about the entire situation, because I’m not sure what the outcome will be, and I don’t want to be a whiney girl who talks about her relationship stuff.  So I’m not sure I’m going to talk about it here.  But I will say that thus far it has proved to be a good thing.  And possibly a God thing.  Even if we didn’t know that we had sort of started the entire process a little earlier than we thought we had… it’s just semantics!
9. Speaking of God, whose name is holy and great and often used in vain by me (sorry!), He’s been answering an entire bunch of prayers for people who I know, maybe even a slew!  And it’s so comforting to see what He’s doing, really, it calms my random bouts of crippling anxiety and gives me peace in my heart!  And I’ve been realizing that there are so many good things that He does in the day to day life I live that I can’t help but praise Him.  He gives me little gifts all the time, and He shows me that He’s listening on a regular basis.  Such a good God.  There’s none better! 
10. I like to do two things to give myself a treat: one of them is getting a manicure.  This past week I got a crazy gel-shelaque-bake-on mani at my favorite Vietnamese nail place in Concord.  My nail polish usually chips by day two, but these suckers aren’t going anywhere!  It’s like someone put on a coat of superglue and then a thin layer or three of plastic and then put my hands in an easy-bake oven.  It’s amazing. 
11. The other thing I do to treat myself is buy books, and I got the new Libba Bray book, Beauty Queens, and it was spectacular.  Another feat of genius, well done Miz Bray.  Now I’m reading Tina Fey’s Bossypants, and the wit this woman comes up with is gut clenching funny.  I highly recommend both books.
12. I’ve been able to take some time off, meaning taking two weekends this month, and thus far I’ve been on a fabulous women’s retreat with my church and am going to be going to spend a weekend at home for best-friend time with none other than The BFF, who I am so excited to see I might pee on the way to the car.  I’m going to ask whoever I get to give me a ride home to put plastic on all the seats.  And to bring air freshener.

And I know, it’s been a while since I have really updated.  I am going to do my best to get back into it, please stop with the e-mails and facebook friend requests and phone calls.  I’ll be trying to put up something like an article in the next few days.  There, now stop asking.

1.  Ever since I stated praying again God has been shuffling things around like a 60-year-old blackjack dealer from Vegas named Lorraine.
I spent about a week wallowing in my misery, which was mainly an attitude problem, but me being  a chicken shit.  I wanted to really get settled in my home, but that didn’t take long.  Then instead of reaching out to people I assumed that everyone was busy and I don’t like to be a bother, so I sat around a lot during my down time watching movies and drinking.

I cared for you in the wilderness,
in the land of burning heat.
When I fed them, they were satisfied;
when they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me.
So I will be like a lion to them,
like a leopard I will lurk by the path.  – Hosea 13:5-7

There’s a promise in here folks, one that was meant for God’s people when they started turning away from him.  He sneak attacked me for sure, thankfully in a positive way.  After too much of me praying and telling God my life was too boring he got me hooked back up with activities: first a woman from church called and asked me to help out with child care on Tuesday mornings for a mother’s group.  Then my land lord asked if I wanted to help him out with his moving business.  And I finally stopped being a pussy and made the effort to hang out with friends, which was very worth while.  The real kicker is that I’m getting paid for the child care, which I’d do for free, and helping out my land lord.  God must really love me, because he’s giving me projects to fill my time.  Actually, it’s all for his glory anyway since the more is on my plate the more I seek him.  He’s smart.

2.  At bible study on Mondays people have a phrase that keeps popping up in stories usually regarding co-workers or strangers: “I got to share the gospel with (insert name here).” If I know anything, I know this: I’m not very good at eloquently having a conversation about most things, much less Christianity and what it’s all about.  But I started to feel like Jesus was having me notice this for a reason.
Challenge accepted! It literally feels like I’m putting my heart in his hands in a different way.  I started adding to my prayers that if God wanted me to talk about him outside of my christian friends, which is something I do all the time but not with a purpose, that he would give me the situations and the words to help further his kingdom.  I prayed this while most of me was ready and willing, and a little part of me was hoping this would be the kind of thing I pray about but don’t have to encounter ever in my life.  Of course I have no such luck.  I was telling one of my co-workers a story about praying that God help me forgive our bible study leader for making us watch a seriously sad movie and God produced a situation.  As it turns out, some people are really curious about what a bible study is all about, because their visual could be of a group sitting in a circle reading the same section of the bible in silence together.  Since then I’ve gotten to share more with my co-worker, who has never been to church before.  He may just be curious, but it’s still cool to get a chance to explain things to someone who is a fairly blank slate.  (By blank slate I mean that when I mentioned a Worship Team his automatic thought was of superhero suits and forcing people to sing church songs.  I love this kid.)  And since talking openly about something to one person leads to me talking openly about something to everyone, I’ve found myself inserting God into conversations more in little ways.  Usually it’s just telling people about how God answers prayers, but I think it still counts because I say it with a conviction they can’t ignore!

3.  Work has been really good for me, especially since I work with a good group of people.  I try to make sure I get things accomplished, and I’m usually on top of things.  Another bonus: I’ve been lifting a lot of wine cases and my arms are getting pretty buff!  I’m not a naturally muscular person in any place but my legs and such, so it’s really quite thrilling to see some definition and to feel like I could punch someone and it’s hurt!  It’s also good to just be able to do physical labor because it wears me out which helps me sleep better.

4.  Since I’ve gotten up off my hiney and started trying to hang out with people I’ve been able to make a few new connections (which I always enjoy) and reconnect with a few people that I’ve missed.  Tink is always a joy to spend time with, I enjoy sharing thoughts on God and his Word with her, and she inspires me to see the world in a different way all the time.  I have gotten to hang out with Pilot (he flies planes) after having a little sabbatical on that friendship, and I’m really happy about it.  I missed him, even when he makes me want to shave his eyebrows and tattoo a man’s name on a banner across a heart on his body.  I got to talk on the phone to Smokey (he’s a firefighter) and share a little about how excited I am that God’s working all over the place as well as find out what’s new and good in his life.  He’s a real sweetheart, so I love getting to catch up.  I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tiger for weeks and finally got to catch up over the weekend a little bit, but not enough!  I think we’ll figure out a way to get some quality time soon.

Little Things: 5.  I’m still digging my room and house  6.  Spring is on it’s way!  7.  Talking to strangers  8.  Realizing I’m 83-years-old on the inside and still act like a 6-year-old  9.  Going to church  10.  Free plumbs at work when they are going to be tossed out  12.  Constantly discovering new promises in the Word