My heart

My heart yearns for relationships. To be built, to be sustained, to be transformed by You. You are the holy one, the Savior that was promised. I pray for each relationship I have. I cover them in protective prayer. I cover my friends and family in His grace and mercy. I cry out for those that don't know You...and those that have strayed from You. My tears cannot amount to Your blood shed for us in Your great sacrifice.

What is your grace? How do we accept this gift without anything to equal the balance? We will never live close to Your perfection - yet You want us anyway. How can this be? How can You want this imperfect people?

It all comes back to relationship. How can a father not desire his children? How then can a Father not desire his children? Even when they pull away...He is still there waiting and tugging their dirty sleeve.

We realize He is tugging...and try to pull away...some of us try to clean up the sleeve on our own - but knowing it'll never be crisp and clean and white again, for our sin is splashed across in bright reds. Then some of us turn, dirty sleeve, dirty face, dirty heart. We turn to Him, and He is waiting. We run to Him, dirty as we are, and as we pull away from the huge bear hug, we look down to our starched white shirt, no hint of stain because He has taken it all.

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I think I'm officially decided...I'm a night owl. Given the chance, I will generally stay up till 2AM. And given another chance, I revert to 8 hrs sleep.

Julie & Julia

I utterly adore the film Julie & Julia.  We watched it (again, for me) tonight, and I just can't get over how inspiring, funny, and heart-warming it is for me.  I saw it when it came out in the theatres a few months ago with my good friend Tiffani, and loved it so much I went out and bought the two books it was done from - My Life in France by Julia Child, and Julie & Julia by Julie Powell - that night.  Needless to say, I haven't actually gotten to read either one (darn, why didn't I think to bring them to read on the plane?!), but really do hope I can soon.

I think my first love is just the character of Julia Child...I hope Meryl Streep gets and Oscar for it, because she just did an absolutely amazing job.  I adore her Julia...to the point I want to learn more and more about her...and possibly pick up some of her videos or books...or maybe even learn how to cook!  LOL


The love of food in the film is just tangible...and the love between the couples is so amazing.  I adore the partnership between Julia and Paul (and I just love Stanley Tucci!), and also Julie's relationship with her husband is beautiful as well.

I delight in seeing Julia's sister and then Avis, and her reaction to each meeting.  I cry every time they touch that longing for a child in Meryl's performance.  I rejoice in Julia's triumphs in cooking school (oh, the onions!), and the eventual acceptance of the book.  I long to know her!

But along with my love of Julia's character, is how I relate to Julie's side of the story.  There she is...on the edge of thirty...trying to find something to power through, some project to keep herself going through life - something important to say, "Yes, here I am!  See, I can make my mark too!"  She is lucky enough to have someone by her side through all this - I so far am going it alone.  But when they get to her 30th birthday party and she says something about how terrible she thought it would be, they made it bearable, and not so bad...yep, definitely felt if not said, something almost exactly the same this year...

And Paris...oh PARIS!  It just makes me want to go there...speak French again...EAT...  Everything was a beautiful, gorgeous (albeit rosy) version of a city I've had a vague inkling I'd like to visit someday, turned to a raging 'I need to go NOW!' urge that is very uncharacteristic of this person who travels for people, not places.  I've really never had the huge travelling bug, seeing places just isn't a huge priority for me (seeing people IS), but this film just makes me want to hop the next ocean-crossing flight and somehow catch a Delorean to go back in time to this picturesque town.

Surprisingly, I didn't think to just buy this movie.  I rented it from RedBox, but since it's only $1, then I'll be fine to buy it later.  If I had to pay more than that, I probably would have weighed the difference and bought my own copy, because I know I'll watch this one at least a few more times before I'm tired of it...if ever...

The other direction

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IN!!! What a morning!

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Last day by myself...

So we're down to the wire on the packing detail. There are some things I think ill still leave at the old place (ie cleaning supplies & some food), but for the most part, I should have everything done and packed today. Since Mike and Danielle, and possibly Adam are coming at **7:30** tomorrow morning... LOL... I pick up the UHaul at 8:00 so I may go a bit early to see if I can just get it earlier.

It looks like we'll have a decent crew tomorrow and I'm kinda feeling like it'll be a party of sorts, kinda excited to see a lot of friends at once :D

Pic is me lying on the couch for a break (been going since 8:00), looking into one corner of the room. This has been a fun place. Chelsea put up the twinkle lights somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we put them on a switched outlet, and they stayed up all year, as our living room lighting. Much better then the harsh overhead fan lighting.

So I need to still take that down, as well as Vickie's framed drawing and the silver mirror at the top of the stairs....and fill any holes left behind there. I need to take apart the sound system, but I really don't want to! I've got the ipod playing so maybe ill do it last thing tonight since its not too difficult.

The only 'major' packing is to get all the 'paperwork' all packed nicely into boxes for transport. Right now they're in open-top boxes so not set up for moving. I hate my paperwork! Its sooo disorganized and I can never seem to catch up enough to do that. Teesha said the other night that even though I'm super-awesome at organizing other stuff and people, apparently it all goes to crap when it comes to my personal life. I tend to agree, its just crazy I can't get a grip on this stuff.

Okay its time for a nap...here's to blogging on the blackberry!


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shortest nails ever!!!

I haven't had short nails in soooo long! I just pre-emptively cut them all off in anticipation of moving tomorrow and saturday... I don't think I've ever had all my nails the same length either :)

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