Happy Belated Birthday to my blog!

Yes, it's now over one year old!
Hooray blog!
I appreciate you!
:)
Ok, so I have a bunch of intentions for new posts which will probably appear on here soon. For now though, I'm feeling a little under the weather, and not at my most eloquent. (But am I ever? Ha!)
Here's a small tidbit of news. Crowded House announced they would play at a club in Pomona (not very far from LA) on April 29th. Being my computer access is quite limited yet, I didn't get the notice from ticketmaster until Sunday before church. The tickets went on sale Saturday... I had high hopes for securing a couple, but alas. None were to be found. I guess they sold out in 90 minutes. This is a good thing, as it indicates a market where more gigs would definitely sell. But it's a bit of a challenge to see yet another CH gig get sold out in front of me! Argh!

Today is March 28th. I will be flying to Minnesota in about one month and six days. Yay! Time is coming up!

Ok, that's not much to throw into cyberspace, but it's all I can focus on for now. Be good, all!

KR Recommends: Tortilla Heaven

So, since I've moved back to LA, my main link to knowing what movies are in the theatres is primarily seeing movie posters on billboards/at bus stops/on the sides of busses. Yes, not the best way to determine what you want to see, but it works for me. (And saves me from wasting hours of my life watching tv...haha!)
Last weekend I hung out with my pal Kim for a bit, and we decided to go see a movie. Our tastes are not the most in sync (eg. I really wanted to see The Number 23, and she seemed to be most interested in the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics), so we had to settle for a flick that might not otherwise have gotten our money.
Said choice became the film Tortilla Heaven. Before reading the synopsis on Kim's computer, all I had known about it was that it had an interesting poster, with the tagline: "You can't keep a miracle a secret."
Due to lack of time, I won't give you an entire breakdown of the plot. [Is that a cheer I hear?!] Suffice it to say, it was worth the 10 bucks. It's funny, cute, and has a great message. A lot of the characters are quite endearing too...which makes or breaks a movie for me oftentimes.

After the film ended, I thought to myself that in a way, it was like a modern-day telling of Jesus' Parable of the Lost Sheep...like, how far would God go to bring back a man?
I will say that some of the background music is a tad cheesy, but mostly that's just the teenagers-in-love sequence, which is sort of comical in and of itself.
My favorite one liner in the movie (sorry if this ruins it), is when this Catholic priest is watching these statues of Saints being taken out of his church. He treats the statues like their his friends, so this is heart-breaking for him. Anyway, if you aren't familiar with Spanish, a quick lesson is that 'Saint' translates into 'San' (male version) or 'Santa' (female version). As one statue gets carried out, the priest protests: "Not San Andreas! It's not his fault!"
Yuk-yuk-yuk.
(For any non-Americans who might read this, I might need to explain that the San Andreas Fault is the line in California where most earthquakes occur.)
So anyway, that's my two cents.

Humility is...

Recently I was reading through a small book of poems my friend Christy wrote. (I should mention, I had a copy of this book thanks to my generous friend Audrey, who offered it to me when I saw a stack sitting on her bookshelf.)

Christy is a fantastic poet, and this little collection was further evidence. A few of her pieces even moved me to tears. (Yay for Christy! And an even bigger Yay for God as the pieces all had biblical themes!)
So after finishing this booklet, I made the unwise decision to read through some of my own stuff again...

If you write, you might relate to the fact that you can feel very differently about your work depending on what sort of mood you're in. Sometimes you think you're the next Shakespeare...sometimes you feel satisfied that you excorcised your creative demons...and sometimes you wish someone would pound your hands with a sledgehammer so that you could never write again.
When I was younger, a lot of my writing was thrown into the metaphoric furnace when I hit a period where I was disgruntled with my stuff.
I would toss stuff relentlessly...journal entries, half-written stories, papers I had done for school, etc.
I felt like if I couldn't write something amazing, at least I still had the control to not pollute the world with my mediocre meandrings. So, away it went...

If I may be so bold as to say that with age comes wisdom, and at 27 I'm starting to 'get up there' in years, then I think I can say I'm starting to learn my lesson.
As much as I wanted to toss all my stuff with this recent bout of "I suck"-ness, I wouldn't let myself.
I've made the statement before that though I don't always believe in myself, I believe in what God can do through me. I'm realizing that this lesson means having to endure the obviousness of my lack of talent in some respects in faith that something I write might be able to be used as God's instrument...if He so chooses.
Hopefully you follow me.
Humility is...letting others see your weaknesses.

New Link--read Amy's thoughts--cool!

Yes, can you believe yet another post from me this week?!
Incredible, I know...but my pal Amy W. here in LA (not to be confused with my pal Amy M. in WI who I've known since I was about 5 years old) is letting me use her laptop at the moment. How wonderful! Yay!
Anyway, I've taken down the link I had to my friend Kat's Xanga site, as in a recent email Kat told me she had lost her interest in blogging and was now into facebook. In its place, it only seems right that I present my newest link...to LA Amy's Xanga site. I've only had the time to read her most recent entry so far, but it's as witty, thoughtful, and ecclectic as she is! So there you go, folks...fill your life with more glorious blogs! Ha!

Blue Tassels

"And the LORD said to Moses, 'Say to the people of Israel: "Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach the tassels at each corner with a blue cord. The tassels will remind you of the commands of the LORD, and that you are to obey his commands instead of following your own desires and going your own ways, as you are prone to do. The tassels will help you to remember that you must obey all my commands and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God. I am the LORD your God!"'"--Numbers 15: 37-41 NLT

We're what--about halfway into the season of Lent right now? A neat theme seems to be developing for me, which is encouraging in that I feel like I can maybe pick up on something God might be trying to throw my way.
Last Sunday at Kairos, JR gave a very thought-provoking message. No, I'm not just saying that to make up for my criticism of a few weeks back either!...
He mentioned at one point that the connotation of the word "Repent," means something very different than what we usually think. To put it in a nutshell, it was the sort of thing a commander might say to convey the message, "Trust me to lead/do things my way, instead of what seems right to you."
The week before this, the message at Kairos (given by Joe R.) involved the challenge of seeking out what things we might pray about doing God's way over our own.
These messages obviously fit together.
The repent notion means even more to me, considering that it's my job everyday to orchestrate the shift I'm running at work. I am the one asking people to trust me to lead them. Similarly, I know how frustrating it is to be asked to do that by someone else--especially when I think my way is so much better.

There are a lot of pathways before me right now. I'm praying for direction for which one to take...specifically in about 6 months time. I'd love it if you felt inclined to pray for me too.

All this to say, I realize I need to humbly bow my knee and not let my *good* motivations/plans/desires get in the way of God's *perfect* ones for my life. Maybe I'll find some tassels to sew onto my clothes yet... ;)

Smiling on the Inside

[Not my pic, but it gives you an idea...]

Hey Folks, just a quick post inspired by my walk to the library, and hopefully I'll have time for a more substantial one before I leave...

So I have to say up front that blue is my favorite color (though upon the recommendation of The Counting Crows, Gray has also been at the top of my list for almost a decade too...still second fiddle though). This is probably obvious to you, considering the name of my blogspot. ;)
Dark blue catches my eye the most, but lighter blue in the right context is lovely too...

Nevermind the smog in LA--quite often I find the sky to be a wonderful shade of blue... Absolutely pristine with not a cloud in the sky (though clouds are quite beautiful too!).
It makes me thankful that God chose to paint the sky with color...

"Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire couldn't conquer the blue sky..."--Crowded House
"...Blue skies for everyone/Blue skies/setting sun/cherry pie/bubble gum/lullabies to be sung/blue skies for everyone..."--Bob Schneider
"Color is its own reward...the chiming of a perfect chord..."--Crowded House

[of course I realize that if you don't know these songs, the effect of the lyrics on you will be minimal, but I include them regardless]

Simplicity vs Life

Hello from the library! You know what that means...a quick post with no fun picture...ah well, thems the breaks.
So here's my thought for the day...
Keeping life simple is hard...especially in 21st Century American Culture.

I have this tendency in life to try to hang on to too much. Literally. I think it was a couple of weekends ago as I was driving home from a weekend trip to Las Vegas with my friend Kim, that she pointed out I was clutching an empty styrofoam cup ( I forget if it was my McDonald's coffee cup or what I got some ice cream in). I had been holding onto it for what I think was about 2 hours or so. She gently reminded me I could set it down. I told her I might as well not since we were about to stop somewhere anyway, and I could just throw it out.
Things like this happen to me a lot.
I have dreams about it too. Like I'm trying to hold onto my coat, and my keys, and my cell phone, and groceries, and a shaven cat or something all at the same time. But I keep dropping things or misplacing things because there's really only so much you can hold onto.

I put a high value on good stewardship. That means using the things God puts in my hands in an appropriate way. So there's this constant tension between not wanting to be a slacker (i.e. maximizing what I *can* hold on to), and not wanting to pile on too much. Maybe that's where the term juggling comes in.
I think it also involves the law of diminishing returns, or something like that.
It's like the fact that sometimes the more you try to add, the less bang you get for your buck. In a shape, if you keep adding sides to it, it increasingly resembles a circle (which has no sides). Essentially, the more complicated you get, the more simplicity seems to beckon.
So I think the trick is finding the level where I operate on a sort of pentagram like plane rather than crossing over into the hexagon. Does that make sense to you?

If I seem completely off my rocker, I'll tell you what prompted this line of thinking...last night at a meeting for church, we were encouraged to do this comprehensive self analysis that all in all will probably amount to around 30 pages of written material (or 60 if you're name is Kristie). I'm struggling with whether to jump in or not...

Ok, more later...thanks for humoring me. :)

Back At It--Courtesy of Spot!

Helloooooooo!
My goodness, it's been a while!
I'm not sure how many--if any--of you saw my farewell to the blog speech on the comments of the last post I did.
If you did, nevermind!
If you didn't, here's the deal...
Blogger switched over to a new format which I had massive trouble getting into without a gmail address. So after a few different attempts, and ample amounts of frustration, I decided that was that. Goodbye blog. It had been real.
But my pal Scott--aka Spot (sidebar link to his own blog, folks!)--would not sit by and let that happen.
So he figured out how to kick this bucket of bolts into hyperspace, and here we are, flying along happily again.
I do regret that at the moment I have a lot less time to keep up with posting my thoughts as I'd like...but maybe it's good that the world only gets so much at a time.
For now, the big news is that my MN pals Cheryl and Lizzy (that's a guy, if you're not sure) are engaged!!! The big date is set for September, and I've been asked to be Cheryl's Maid of Honor--a privellege that is better than 10 Christmas and Birthday presents combined! ;)
Oh...also, I put a new link up to my friend Audrey's blog...assuming I spell her last name right this time and the link actually goes through. She's a poet folks--similar to Christy M.--so if you're up for some deep thoughts, take a hop/skip/jump over to her blogspot and look around.
Cheers for now--more soon!
Keep the faith, all! :)