Falling leaves

I really never thought I would actually hear the leaves falling. I figured it was just a funny little metaphor thing, and today there was frost on everything, so you could hear the leaves break from the tree and they whistled through the air to make a "pad" noise as they softly landed on the ground. It sounded like footsteps, through the woods all around me, which freaked me out while I was running until I figured it out.

Laurel's big Halloween party is today at school. So we rather frantically scoured our garage for something for her to wear. We managed to find a Belle costume. And out of the blue comment came from Josh. It was so important to him that Laurel had a costume today, because he could remember going to school not having one. Even a homemade one would do, he said. Kinda makes you think of all you take for granted.

I happened to sit down at the piano for a few minutes the other day and had one of those "perfect no note could be wrong" kind of days. I must of played for hours, and was only planning on 5 minutes. Just playing every song I've written and finished, even some I had been working on. And I haven't touched the piano since.

Actually I've been writing again. I used to write just notebooks full of stories and horrible poems for that matter (which I really didn't do for long, since I knew they were horrible to begin with). I always have ideas and call me crazy that my mind is creative. But I always figured that no one would want to hear what ideas I came up with, since I have such a dull life to begin with.

But I think that since my life isn't all that intriguing, my mind just might be. You know a whole opposites attract kind of thing, well, you get the point. Does that mean that people who have a "life" are the dullest people in their mind? Yeah, I better not ask.

Dar is talking my ear off, so I better go.

Well I never thought for one second that I would be so excited about getting a bed, but I am. The mattress is either coming on Wednesday, or this weekend. We got the plumbing all fixed and for a really good price, (which is so awesome) and I hope I hope I hope, that the lumber guy comes this week so we have the extra money to tune my piano.

Plus this weekend I'm going shopping with my two sister-in-laws and my mother-in-law, and I'm really excited for my sister-in-law because we're shopping for new business clothes. Give me maybe a year ago and I would have been super jealous. That's just how much I have changed. And no that wasn't a pride thing, I am just so horrendously happy for her it is really a relief that I'm not jealous and bitter. I never said I was perfect.

Anyways, I've been looking for a good beginner guitar, and I have no idea what to look for. So I've been trying to do a little research and well, we will see. I don't want to sacrifice quality for price, but it's slow going towards understanding anything about guitars. I'm not overall concerned about name brand, but I want a good sound, good fit and all that. I don't want to hate it, and resent the fact that I didn't have a lot of money to buy it. So I think I have to break down and visit one of our local music stores and ask questions to whoever happens to be working, and try some out, the really really poor guy (or girl) because I probably won't buy it there, and I will waste a ton of their time. Although if I go to the one I usually go to, I've spent more than a ton of money there in my lifetime, without wasting any time, so I think they might be owing me something, huh? I still feel sorry for them.

I broke out my cello, and for the first time in forever I didn't feel really guilty about it. Don't ask me, I just really love the idea of more than just one melody line like on the piano, (which cello is one melody line) and the kids were really excited to dance while I played. It was fun. Something different to dance to than just music blaring out my computer. Usually I play some songs I've composed on the computer and the girls sit there like groupies and sing along with it. It's halirious to hear Laurel and Dar sing in the car, I have this car cd I made up of different songs I've picked up, and they love Barlowgirls, but it's really fun to sing. And the girls love it.

That's it for now.

Anger, jealousy and disappointment

Yesterday I suddenly got really angry, jealous and disappointed because of a person. Actually it was more the reality of where I want to be and can't quite reach my goals yet, because I am in this huge waiting phase in my life. I know I'm supposed to be waiting and learning, (I don't want to be) and I fight against it everyday of my life. As I welled up with those emotions, I felt pretty crappy about the whole ordeal, and did the totally unexpected.

I paid that person a complement.

I am not exactly sure how I knew I needed to do it, but I felt a hundred percent better. It was even something nice about what I was angry about. It was the truth as well (that helps). Which is totally off the wall for me, (not the truth, but the complement) because 1. I don't pay complements unless I really am really, really awed about something, and 2. I usually sit in my little world of hatred and mope about the pity of me.

The best part though is that I could see on their face that I made their day. Surprise, surprise, I was much happier that I impacted someone else's life in a positive way, and lifted them up, than any reason to make myself feel better. No pity party here.

And that is a change in pace.

Yeah, I highly recommend it.

Protecting yourself from disappointments

I tried explaining to my mom about setting yourself up so you aren't disappointed when you get to whatever you've prepared for. I do that. It's a defense mechanism, I am trying to protect myself from people. Even people who love me and wouldn't want to hurt me at all.

For example: When I used to play the piano for church, I would practice and practice, which is obviously the best thing to do, but in my mind I would have to vision that I did it perfectly. My defense mechanism is that I always mess up at least once when I perform, usually it's something small like style. But because I have the mind-set that I will mess up at least once, I always mess up. Once my mistake is past, I have a flawless performance. But it doesn't hurt so bad because I know I make mistakes, and I prepared to make a mistake instead of being perfect and disappointing myself when I fail.

The problem with this is that I am expecting less than I'm worth. I already know by how much I've practiced that I can have a flawless performance. I don't want to regret the fact that when it counts I am supposed to be perfect. I just end up beating myself over it.

It's much worse when I expect other people to perform to my standards (and I don't mean perform in the music sense). I tell myself that they have faults, and can let me down. So when they are less than perfect, I am not surprised or disappointed because I prepared for it.

I used to think that my boyfriends would always break up with me, way before any of them even thought of it. Looking back on it, I see that I probably led them to break up with me, because I didn't have the motivation to cultivate the relationship. I was too busy focusing on protecting my poor excuse of pride and self-worth, and breaking down relationships that had potential to be really great. And I don't mean in a love relationship either, because I am not even friends with these people, I didn't give them a chance to be my friend (because I was hurting myself,) after they figured out the relationship was less than desirable.

When I went to coffee the night before last, I realized that I have changed this perception. I know even if my sister-in-law gets angry with anything I say, she still loves me enough that she isn't going to knowingly try to hurt me. And vice-versa. But that's a trust that she has earned from me. I've known her for 3 years now, and to think that I've taken that long to come around, is amazing to me. And she hasn't just discarded me after lack of interest.

The same goes with Josh, he could have easily walked out on me, because I am a very hard person to live with. I expect too much out of him. And that motivates him in some ways to be a better person, but in other ways it's set him off because he can't reach my high standards.

But I guess I'm worth it. And any relationship my family and friends choose to stick out with me is greatly appreciated. I hope I can successfully live up to everyone else's character and stubbornness to see the relationship through.

Grisly Bear

Last night I went out for coffee, conversation, and de-stressing with my sister-in-law. And it just so amused me that they had a drink called the Grisly Bear, which was a vanilla caramel latte. So I order it, and my sister-in-law is like, what did you order??? A Grisly Bear, mostly because I wanted to say it out loud. So she let out this little laugh, and the guy probably heard me, so he yelled out, I need a Grisly Bear!

Well, it got to the point that a few orders were coming at a time, so the main guy asked if the other guy was making the Grisly Bear while he took the other orders, the guy's like I've got the Grisly Bear. So my sister-in-law said Oh, they said it two more times! And I couldn't help but laugh. Yeah, that started out our night. Silly and crazy, but fun.

And the Grisly Bear was really good, so I recommend it. But it will keep you awake, a good part of the night, be warned.

Church

Josh and I had a huge busy day on Sunday, we made it to church, I went with mom to work-out (which means: I work-out, and mom gets to sit in the whirlpool for a long time.) and went to Josh's company picnic.

Since our church is so far away, and we had a busy Sunday, the church we went to this week used be to my church as a kid. However it has changed hands, several times now, and there are still a lot of "cling-ons" if you will, staying at the particular building. I got to see a lot of old faces, get a few hugs and so on.

We chose a pew and started to watch the music team (didn't know any of the songs). I pick out the few who have talent, (ie way better than me) and watched them while they play. Then they started singing a version of a song we knew, so we tried singing it, except they kinda butchered it, but oh well, their hearts are in the right place.

I sat down and right away I knew something was wrong. Now don't get confused over this, because I was all pumped up for a new experience at my old church, that I heard had a good speaker and good music (which was proven...well....like I said, their hearts are in the right place). And I wanted to see what had changed in the place I had once lived at (my mom was involved in everything). I had seen all the changes they did to the building, the additions, the actual "sanctuary" was turned into the kids ministry, with rooms where the pews used to be. I could have cried, I can remember many times I would walk up that aisle and watch the cross at the other end of the room, above the baptismal and just knelt and wept, especially when I was going through rough times. And when we were there at night, it was a very creepy but isolated room, I could always feel God's presence there, although now I'm not so sure it was the room that was doing it.

The cross now hangs in the new auditorium, painted beige, almost melting into the wallpaper.

I was listening to the speaker and there were a few things I didn't agree with, but it was a matter of opinion. Then as a whopper of a slap across the face, he started to take what he liked out of the verse and use it, saying the rest of the verse was not applicable! I think if I wasn't so stunned I would have walked out. I was hoping he just made a mistake, but his whole next point wrapped around that section of verse he had slaughtered.

After the sermon was done, Josh and I walked out of that church, and got in the car. Josh was rather silent at first, then said, Well? as if to initiate dialog. Well, I said, there were a lot of fallacies in his sermon I don't agree with. So we talked about the whole sermon itself, and Josh brought up the same verse I had problems with! So we started to look back and find all the good things about the sermon itself, and got a really good conversation going about it. We figured the only reason we were meant to go to that church was for that conversation.

We came home to mom who was watching the younger 2 kids, and she was the one who recommended the church to us, asked how it was. When we told her what happened she didn't believe us. She stressed it was a biblically sound speaker and church.

I think that was that point that I chose to step out from under my mother's authority, and instill my Word as truth, and if she chose not to believe me, that was for her to decide, I don't need to live up to her standards. She claims that her so called standards are in my head. And who knows, maybe, but they wouldn't be there if she hadn't given me a reason to believe that she had standards in the first place. There are a lot of great qualities about my mom, but when you are struggling to be an adult and free yourself from the adult rules of your childhood, it gets kinda tough, from both sides. When you know a person pretty well, sometimes you give into things that if it were any other person you would have some hope to persuade to see your side.

Well if anything, it made Josh and I really appriciate our church, which was not a problem, but it's nice to be re-enforced sometimes.

Sorry I really didn't mean to be talking about church, my prayers are that everyone is in a church they love, and if you aren't in one you love or in one at all, that you will find one.