93 million miles

"93 million miles from the sun.

 People get ready, get ready, cause here it comes.

 It's a light, a beautiful light,

 Over the horizon, into our eyes.

 Oh, my, my, how beautiful.

 Oh, my beautiful mother, she told me,

 'Son, in life you're gonna go far and if 

 You do it right, you'll love where you are.

 Just know wherever you go, you can always come home.'

 240,000 miles from the moon.

 We've come a long way to belong here,

 To share this view of the night, a glorious night.

 Over the horizon is another bright sky.

 Oh, my, my, how beautiful.

 Oh, my irrefutable Father, He told me,

 'Son, sometimes it may seem dark, but

 The absence of the light is a necessary part.

 Just know you're never alone. You can always come back home.'

 Every road is a slippery slope.

 There is always a hand that you can hold onto.

 Looking deeper through the telescope

 You can see that your home's inside of you.

 Just know that wherever you go, no, 

 You're never alone. You will always get back home.

 93 million miles from the sun.

 People get ready, get ready, cause here it comes.

 It's a light, a beautiful light,

 Over the horizon, into our eyes."

-Jason Mraz

New beginnings

I feel like it is a part of the good, old American tradition to sit around before New Years and make up some sort of list (whether it's long or short) of things that you resolve to do during the new year--a time of new beginnings...a fresh start. Everyone does that. I've always had at least one resolution each year since I remember being old enough to know what resolutions were.

But I also know that there are other times in your life when it might not be the 1st of January, but you just need a fresh start and a new beginning...you need to give yourself some resolutions. And sometimes it's up to you to give yourself that new beginning.

Maybe something major happened, or maybe it was something small.Maybe you lost a job, maybe your pet died, maybe you're tired of spending money on stupid things, maybe you've realized you could be doing better things with your time, or maybe you lost someone you love, and you've come to the realization that it's time to move on. It may sound corny, but you don't have to sit around waiting for New Years Eve to roll around just to call it quits and move on to better things. Yet that can be a really hard decision to make--moving on--because it means you have to instigate this new beginning yourself. Sometimes it feels like you can't do that...like it's too hard and too much work.But you can. Sometimes you have to.

Because you deserve a new beginning. You deserve to have the chance to move on to better things. You have got to make the conscious decision (which nobody else can make for you) to let go. Let go because it's frustrating. Let go because it makes you angry. Let go because it makes you cry or breaks your heart. Let go because it's exhausting to hold on. And then grab ahold of something else. It's time to focus on YOU. Do something you've always wanted to do. Go somewhere you've always wanted to go. Drop your cellphone/iphone/computer, and take a well deserved break for a while. Be grateful for the friends and other support you have, and spend time appreciating them and the gifts they have to offer. Read your Bible...read any book in general--make a whole list of them and read them all. Pray..a lot. Exercise and keep yourself busy.

At first it might feel like all of these things are just attempting to fill a void, and that they don't really mean anything. But if you stick to it and really just focus on yourself and living your own life, you'll slowly realize that's exactly what you should be doing...and you start to realize that you're doing it because you want to, and because it means something. It makes you happy.

I don't know who you are or what you're going through. But maybe it's time to sit back, evaluate your priorities, and make some changes. Sometimes it's up to you to give yourself that new beginning. You have to want it first, and then...go get it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Happy Birthday to be best mom in the entire world!

 

To: Mom

From: Gabe

Happy Birthday, mom!I love you so much, and I'm glad that

I'm not the only one getting older.

-Gabriel

 

To: Mom

From: AnnaMarie

You are the best mother that I could ever ask for. You are so hard working, and you have always set a good example for me. You are a genuine, good, fun person through and through. You have always put us first, but today it's your birthday, so it's time to put yourself first. I'm sorry I can't be there to celebrate and do something fun, but I miss you and I am grateful for you and all you do everyday.

Love, AnnaMarie

 

 

"The first love of your life is generally your mother...She is one of the first teachers, she is a disciplinarian, she is loving and loved, kind, tenderhearted, blessed, praised, and more..."

-Pamela Rose Williams

 



Go open a book..

Found this today and I couldn't resist posting it, because overall I completely agree...

 

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You'll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She's the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand bookshop? That's the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She's the girl while reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she's kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author's making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce's Ulysses, she's just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It's easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but, by God, she's going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot, somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2am clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours, but she will always come back to you. She'll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because, for a while, they always are.

You will propose in a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she's sick. Over skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn't burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names, and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to The Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together, and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you're better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or, better yet, date a girl who writes..."

-Rosemarie Urquico

It's going to be a long year..

"There's a note underneath your front door,

That I wrote twenty years ago.

Yellow paper and a faded picture,

And a secret in an envelope.

There's no reasons, no excuses.

There's no secondhand alibis.

Just some black ink on some blue lines,

And a shadow you won't recognize.

In the meantime, I'll be waiting

For twenty years, twenty more.

I'll be praying for redemption

And your note underneath my door."

 

 

20 Years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyLsj0xKCuA

 

"The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed; the thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms are broken if revealed."

-Charlotte Bronte



Are you passionate?

In one of my favorite movies, Serendipity, starring Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack, there is a line quoted by one of the characters who wrote Obituaries for the NYTimes saying, "You know, the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died--Did he have passion?"

The movie isn't super serious, it's fun, lighthearted, romantic, etc. But I've always really liked that line, because honestly, it has a lot of truth to it. How many people spend months, days, even years of their lives doing things and working jobs that they don't enjoy, where there is no passion in it for them?

I know that for the majority of people out there, you don't always get to work your dream job. Sometimes, for the sake of making ends meet and paying your bills, you have to work a job that might not be your favorite until you can get something else lined up.Understandable, yet still, at the end of it, that saying still rings true.

Did you have passion? Did you do something with your life that you enjoyed? Did it impact others in a beneficial way? Was it something that you chose to do for the wrong reasons, even with good intentions? Or was it something that God asked you and called you to do?

I think that once you get past some of the rough,beginning stages in Careerland, there is a job out there for everyone that they are truly passionate about, something that they will put their heart into, and work so hard at it that it will be a benefit and a blessing, not only to those they come in contact with, but also themselves.
I also truly believe and feel that I've found that thing that I am passionate about. I love teaching, specifically preschool aged kids, but also elementary school. Even though I already know how much I love it, there are some days when it just seriously hits me more then others how passionate I am about it, and how blessed I am to be able to do it.

Like today. I've been working with the KidsTime program at my mom's church since I was old enough to volunteer in the 5th grade, and I've worked with these kids, often from some of the same families, for years of my life. I usually work in nursery, or else preschool. I've literally watched them grow up. But this summer I've been working with older kids in elementary school, many of whom were part of the first groups that passed under my care when I first started volunteering. During the third hour at church on Sundays the kids have their own worship hour. Today is the last Sunday that I really got to work with them before moving back to Wyoming, and even though I'll be back in the area to visit family occasionally, I won't be volunteering there anymore. So standing there, looking at these kids who I've taught, held, babysat, and helped take care of for the last several years of my life--seeing them seriously growing, not only physically, but also spiritually, singing worship songs at the top of their voices, some of them taking communion--I surprisingly got emotional, and was actually blinking back tears.

My job is hard work, yet it is something that I typically always enjoy, even on the most hectic or difficult days. Yet, just like with any job, there are just some days that really hit you and remind you of how much you love it, and how blessed you are to get to do it--days that remind you of why you are so passionate about it. And today was just one of those days.

Do you have passion?

I can't wait..

This song always takes my breath away, but I'm just feelin it even more than usual today:

"You wrote a letter and You signed Your name.

 I read every word of it page by page.

 You said that You'd be coming, coming for me soon.

 Oh, my God, I'll be ready for You.

 I want to run on greener pastures.

 I want to dance on higher hills.

 I want to drink from sweeter waters

 In the misty morning chill.

 And my soul is getting restless

 For the place where I belong.

 I can't wait to join the angels and sing my heaven song.

 I hear Your voice and I catch my breath,

'Well done, My child, enter in and rest.'

 Tears of joy roll down my cheek.

 It's beautiful, beyond my wildest dreams.

 I want to run on greener pastures.

 I want to dance on higher hills.

 I want to drink from sweeter waters

 In the misty morning chill.

 And my soul is getting restless

 For the place where I belong.

 I can't wait to join the angels and sing...

 I want to run on greener pastures.

 I want to dance on higher hills.

 I want to drink from sweeter waters

 In the misty morning chill.

 And my soul is getting restless

 For the place where I belong.

 I can't wait to join the angels and sing.

 No, I can't wait to join the angels and sing my heaven song."