How do I...

...manage to create such chaos?!?!?!

This time I have some what documented it...

1.) Allison spent the night so we

rearranged the living room to accommodate the air mattress. She said the couch was fine...I insisted we blow up the queen sized air mattress.

2.) This require I unpack a box that I'd already sealed and retrieve the comforter and sheets to fit, and the pump. So the contents of the box have seemed to seep out as well.

3.) I have multiple boxes that are open and being packed as I go in several locations, which merits multiple pairs of scissors and rolls of packing tape strewn about.

4.) I have begun taking things off the walls as well and so the tools are out-ish. But the hammer was out for another reason... I began an art project/Christmas present today that might've been a tile project. So I was using the hammer to break tile pieces. (and place those pieces onto the grout I had spread all over the plaster I had mixed...) so THAT is number 5 in essence.

6.) I also poured my first candle today. The mess was beautiful. Kind of like James' song... "candle wax on the floor I can't take it any more!!!" I also managed to spill a vial of the scented oil. It smells divine in my kitchen. Vanilla goodness and without baking a crumb.

7.) Baking. I will have to send a picture of the baking project I am supposed to undertake for Monday :/

8.) unfinished sewing projects (and sequins, threads, bobbins, ribbon and bits of thread and material) EVERYWHERE! Actual completed products. Nowhere...

9.) Paper, receipts, bills/mail, trash...piling up...

10.) I walk in the door after work each day and begin taking clothes off. They tend to stay where they fall. Clean, dirty, worn-but-probs-not-exactly-dirty, rejected outfit I tried on and any other manner of laundry has taken over. I still haven't put anything I washed last weekend in ATH away.

11.) I think that's just about it. Oh, except for the piles that I started with before this documentation...likely have things in them from this summer, for sure Halloween. Lovely.

Aren't you happy I don't live with you!?! Be a good friend to me and remember to never combine Christmas and another big event, ESPECIALLY moving. I'll be home later Saturday...unload, TRY to settle in somewhat...back to FL for MLK...then time to figure out what life might look like for awhile...ugh...what am I doing!?

Answered Prayer

It was about 10:45 when I got in from Athens last night and I was exhausted. I quickly got all of my stuff in from the car, though everything in me was screaming at me to just go inside and go straight to bed. I have been sick for the last 5 weeks or something ridiculous like that and the weekend away kind of made me feel worse again...so I was just tired. I knew I wouldn't want to unpack in the morning and if I didn't in the morning then it'd be like 2 weeks before I finally broke down and unpacked. Probably when I ran out of clothes and it was between unpacking and going to do laundry. I would unpack...

I finally climbed into bed about 11. On December 1 I decided I was going to read the gospel of Luke, beginning with the Christmas story, aloud every night until Christmas (or I guess if I finished Luke first or even better, it had become a habit at that point and I just continue on through the New Testament and the whole Bible...) Oh, and I already missed one night and it had only been 10 days... BUT I took out my Bible and began. I read familiar words that Jesus spoke but that somehow discourage me. So I finished the selection and kind of sighed, I guess, as I closed my eyes and began to "pray myself to sleep" as I like to do.

I thought, "I don't know what I'm doing. I surely never do this life stuff right, I mean here I am leaving my wonderful job in 4 weeks... Not having a plan or another job waiting for me, likely still paying rent at a place I won't even live within 4 hours of... and I don't know why..."

I began to go through all of the arguments--the city I just left 5 hours ago exhausts me. I have to pretend to like people or at least be pleasant; pretend to be happy and positive...or something... And its busy, but an unecessary busy that people make themselves... I think its the college town part of it since most people in college don't know how to manage their time. I always feel like there is "so much to do so little time," the minute I pull into town and I don't like that. It stresses me out. I really do miss the luxury of having everything imaginable at my fingertips...but it makes me spoiled and wasteful I think.

I have about 5 people that I would really love to be in close proximity to again...but sadly enough, everyone else has faded away. I don't know really how I feel about that, because I think I feel sad about it. Sometimes mad...lately glad... You know how people say, "The people who matter like you and the people who don't like you don't matter..." well, I think I've finally bought that. If my "friends" have become three-weeks-of-phone-tag kind of people...I really don't want them as friends anyway. Some part of me does but mostly, if they can live without me, I can live without them too. I think I've gained some kind of perspective from this trip in that respect.

So then, I ask myself, "Why am I moving?"

"I don't have anyone to talk to here?"

Oh wait, I don't have anyone to talk to there.

"I have a good paying job here..." (though my rent is too high for me to be making much profit) ...Oh wait...I'm still going to be paying that rent and WON'T have a job.

"I'll be closer to my mom and my family again?"

...The ones that I spent 2 days with at Thanksgiving and totally fled to ATL for the weekend because I was ready to scream? Yup. I'll be LIVING with them.

"What about the employees, the issues at work, all that grief, you'll be rid of that."

Well...maybe I have started to like them, maybe I have started to love them. I definitely am attached to the kids and have a heart for some of the employees, so it makes me sad to think what might could be should I decide to stay (or had I tried harder to love them since May.)

"What if I love living by myself, love my too-expensive apartment, enjoy a life where I go NOWHERE but work and talk to NO ONE but those I work for... and really just kind of love being totally alone to where NO ONE even knows me. I LOVE the drama-free life that this brings.

No one I used to know knows me. No one I used to know do I know now either. No one I used to know do I even care to know anymore. Not if I don't feel like they even care to know me...

And who cares if no one knows me? Well, you may say, no one knows if you are sick or if you are having a bad day, there's no one to share with when you're excited or proud, or think something is funny. To that I would say, well, that hasn't changed much. With technology these days I can share whatever I choose with whomever I choose. And the ones who will be there for me will be there or not. Just like before. Some will always be asleep, choose to take a bath, just forget or ignore me whether I am in the next room, town, county, state or country.

At least the people here have an excuse, I have an excuse. I don't get invited to things because I'm their boss and we have employer/employee boundaries... Or just because I'm new and no one knows me. I've only been here for 7 months. This place isn't home...but the two buildings I spend my time in have become so...

I don't know WHAT I want to do. I cried all summer long that I wanted to go home. I prayed, kept communication open with my boss that I wasn't sure I really wanted to stay, and then one day it just happened...I was definitely moving the first of the year...a couple of months later we set the date...so I was moving. And then things changed. Maybe it's like with boys...that it's about the thrill of the chase and then one you win it may not be what you want anymore...Maybe because I knew I was free to leave I was ok to stay.

That happened the first time I danced. I totally freaked out and cried and refused to do it...and when someone told me that was ok, that I didn't have to do anything I wasn't ready to do...I chose to do it.

Or maybe I just finally made it past the threshold where things became easy and so now I don't WANT to start something new (even if the old is not exactly awesome, it's habit and easy at least now...which just makes me sound lazy...which honestly, I guess I am.) I don't like the things I have to do everyday...but I know how, they're VERY routine (which I thrive at) and I know what to expect and there is security in that...but I know deep down I don't want to become the Director at my job, and that is what they are interested in and very soon will need. I don't want the current Director to retire and expect me to step up and take her place and then I say, "Oh, uh, yeah, I don't so much want that..." and she feel pressure to stay longer, my get fired, and either way L. R. be stuck in a hard place. OR feel the pressure at that point to step up and take it anyway and then really feel stuck.

I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to mess up a good thing OR miss an easier out when I can take it. I don't want to stay somewhere just because I feel stuck... but I've been in this mode of confusion for a long time. I have really just shut it down, blocked it out, and NOT thought about it at all (and refused to as well) and let things unfold. And the way things just happened I really felt like it was looking like I was going to be staying--because my lease hadn't been taken over and I was going to be responsible for paying it even if I didn't live there. I didn't enjoy my time at home the last several times, I was actually really dreading being back there. Jobs didn't look very promising...so I just decided that I would talk to Sheila about staying. Maybe on a month by month basis depending on the lease...So I rolled over and said, "I don't know what is right, what you want, what I even want. My life is in your hands, You are in control, not my will but Your own, Lord, I just give up hoping for anything I ever want..." and went to bed.

The next morning, the day I was planning on talking to Sheila when I got to work, I got a phone call from my leasing company telling me "Good news, we have someone who wants to move into your apartment mid-January."

O.

K.

Just when I'd given up the idea of leaving...was going to talk to my boss about staying...had even come to terms with it... Now my prayer was answered. I do not even know how to describe how I felt. Unbelievably glad, relieved, and excited...yet, still disappointed in some secret sense...And really anxious and stressed for sure because now it was time to ACTUALLY make some plans. On paper and in reality...not just in my heart.

But still I say, God is GOOD and He answers prayer. He will work everything out for the good for me! And he works in mysterious ways--He will provide, if even at the LAST second...

BUT after that long vent, I rolled over and said to God, "Fine. I'll

"To live your life you've got to lose it and all the losers get a crown...I get down, He lifts me up..." Awesome old youth group days song...