Sharapova's Rock

http://sports.yahoo.com/tennis/blog/busted_racquet/post/Vujacic-proposed-to-Sharapova-with-quarter-milli?urn=ten-280035

Seriously?? 'Cause 8 carats just isn't a big enough rock.

Celebrities really don't even live on the same planet that I do. $250,000 could easily get me through 10 years of early retirement, or 5 years of touring the world.

Tornado warning

I've survived a ruptured appendix, growing up with three brothers, several major surgeries (one of which was jaw surgery and included not eating for 6 weeks), car accidents, gang-bangers with baseball bats, driving the pass during blizzards in Colorado, thousands of miles worth of road trips and flights, horrible food poisoning, and a myriad of heartaches including the deaths of two beloved grandparents & a major relationship break-up, just to name a few. All this in my relatively short lifetime. Tornadoes no longer scare me. They probably should, but they don't.

Progress

Interview next Monday with an employment agency, and I got an e-mail back from Habitat for Humanity. I also discovered a local ladies' self defense class I can join. Things are (mostly) looking up.

As for everything else, I suppose I shall just have to dig in my heels and wait...

Stress Level Test

Just took an online stress level test (it measures major life changes you've experienced over the last year) and scored a 375. Just in case anyone was wondering, that's not a good thing, and they say I have a 90% chance of developing an illness.

No wonder I'm not dealing with life at optimum levels at the moment.... Some things you actually are better off not knowing about yourself. I'm actually not suffering from low back pain, however. There's a positive!

http://www.lower-back-pain-answers.com/stress-level-quiz.html

Journeys

I swore I'd never move back to this place. It never was my #1 pick for somewhere to settle down, and I didn't want to join the myriads of former classmates who got sucked into the vacuum that is Chattanooga.

But then something shifted in my brain this fall. I think it was after about the 2nd job interview that turned out to be fruitless. I'd been feeling like I was stagnating for awhile anyway, but I was enjoying the total independence of being completely on my own. Friends and family kept telling me I should move back... and I wanted to ignore it, but it was like all the pieces in my brain just finally fit together. Kept praying about it and all the street signs seemed like they were pointing in one direction.

So I just made up my mind, and never looked back. I packed up my stuff, loaded up the car, and hit the road. My folks helped me move, but I drove nearly the entire trip myself because I knew I had to be the one driving that car away, and making the conscious choice to leave. A year and a half of life in the Rockies was over. Three years invested in that direction... and as the miles flew away under my car wheels, so did everything else as I left it all behind.

I have no regrets for where my life took me at that point in time, but if I was miraculously offered a chance to go back to the way things were and keep going, I wouldn't take it. Eight months past emotional hell, I know who I am even more than before, and I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. In leaving Colorado, it was like the last shard of the past finally was put where it belonged - in the past. I find it difficult at best to even connect who I am now to where I was then. I know what I felt and what I gave at that point was real, but I'm so far removed from that mindset now that it barely makes sense to me.

Truthfully, I don't have a clue what life has in store for me in Tennessee. I feel at peace with being here, that it's where I'm supposed to be. But I don't know why or for what purpose. I don't have a full-time job yet, and that's just a little more than stressful. I keep sending out applications, and hearing little back. Most of the jobs I've found online won't even allow you to call them, so it's frustrating. I tried joining Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer and can't even get them to respond.... oh well.

I'm still figuring out a lot of things about living here again. I want to join a praise team somewhere so I can actually get back into my music again. That hasn't happened yet, but I believe it will. A few other little things that I was looking forward to about living here again don't seem to be panning out the way I'd hoped, but it's rather out of my control. I guess I just have to be patient and see what happens. That's usually easier said than done for me.

It feels good to be in a good place though. God has led me this far, and I know He won't abandon me now. Sometimes the things you are afraid will destroy you only make you stronger.

Truths for Mature Humans

Truths For Mature Humans

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

22. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

24. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important. (Ladies.....Quit Laughing.)

Wondering....

It's a half-awake, half-asleep kind of feeling. It starts in the pit of my stomach and works its way down to my toes. It leaves my brain churning and confused. I argue with myself, consider every angle, review each detail, until I've exhausted the subject. And then I review it all again in reverse. From one side it looks one way, and from another angle it looks completely different. It all depends on the opening premise for my current viewpoint.

One half of me is hopeful, effervescent, invincible, glass-half-full. The other half argues for 'reason', for logic, for a lack of probability and the glass is half empty.

I view it from amazement and feel blessed. I view it with a cynical gaze and feel hopelessly discouraged. At some point it finally occurs to me that I'm trying to figure out an answer to a question without enough information to arrive at a conclusion. If I were 7 years old again, I could solve it all by simply pulling the petals off of a daisy, one at a time. But I'm 27 now, and I'm stuck with.... wondering.

Finally Home, by Natalie Grant

I am here alone, in the falling snow,
And the wind, it cools my tears.
I have been so wrong,
I have turned away, but the road was long,
And finally I have come to my knees,
I want to be...

Where I can walk,
Where I can run,
Where my heart sings,
And I feel the sun,
Where I can trust,
And I'm strong enough,
Free like the wind,
I'll run into my Father's arms,
I'm finally home!

Oh the winds of change,
They blow slow and cool!
Oh the wandering of a fool,
But I have laid it down,
In my Father's hands,
Where the weight of suffering,
Is carried by the arms of a cross,
Healing my loss...

Where I can walk,
Where I can run,
Where my heart sings,
And I feel the sun,
Where I can trust,
And I'm strong enough,
Free like the wind,
I'll run into my Father's arms

Heaven has reached into my lonely soul.
Loving so deep, and so complete,
'Til I don't feel alone.
Where the light of love is burning,
Where the past is washed away,
Where I feel the sunlight shining on my face!

Now I can walk,
Now I can run,
Now my heart sings,
And I feel the sun,
Now I can trust,
And I'm strong enough,
Free like the wind,
I'll run into my Father's arms,
I'm finally home!

Now I can trust,
And I'm strong enough,
Free like the wind I run,
Into my Father's arms
I'm finally home

Re-vamping my blog

It's been awhile since I've actually blogged on here. This page started as a school assignment for a media class I was taking at UTC my senior year. I'll have to post something soon, but I spent so much time 'tweaking' my layout, that it probably won't be tonight. *laughs*