Recapped: 2011

Bought a house
Gave an alcoholic friend a new chance at life
Lived with said friend for four (long) months
Glad said "friend" is gone
Oldest-younger sister turned 16
Did not get to see my Dad all year
Mom and Sisters lived with us for 5 weeks
One sister stayed for 6 months
Homeschooling a 16 year old is hard
Quit my job
Spent Thanksgiving in Sedona with his family
Spent Christmas by ourselves
Met two amazing new friends
Failed a few people
He changed jobs
Multiple friends had children or became pregnant
Registered for my first college classes
Experienced my first pre-November snowfall (8 inches)
Got a dog
Rescued a cat
Sent said cat home with previously mentioned 16 year old
Became addicted to my church
Faced some hard truths about myself and my beliefs
Made solid plans for our future
Bought a stinking nice camera
Learned the joys of Adobe Lightroom
Tried my hand at plumbing and painting
Kicked in and hammered down a wall
Read the Hunger Games series
Spent $100 in groceries for our church food drive
Began sponsoring Lucky
Didn't write Lucky nearly enough
Fought too much
Cried too much
Spent too much time on facebook
Forgot to send a very important birthday card
Was blessed with some awesome furniture
Learned the value of paint primer


I could go on. I probably will.

Prayer of My Heart Tonight

I'm not going through the easiest of times right now. In fact, in some areas of my life I'm just plain struggling. (With all respect, please do not ask. I do not currently want to share details.)

 The following is my heart cry tonight. I know it is all song lyrics. Nothing voices the heart's silent cry like music.

     'Cause when the answers and the truth take different sides, will you still find me? Will you still see me through smoke?


     Let my praise be your welcome let my song be your sign
     I am here for you, I am here for you
     Let your breath come from heaven, fill my heart with your life
     I am here for you, I am here for you
     Let my shout be your anthem, your renown fill the sky
     I am here for you, I am here for you
     Let your word move in power, bring what's dead back to life
     I welcome you with praise, I welcome you with Praise
     Almighty God of Love, you're welcome in this place.


  All is lost
  Find him there, find him there
  After night
  Dawn is there, dawn is there
  After all falls apart
  He is there, he is there


  Oh the Glory of it all is:
  He came here to rescue us
  So we may live
  For the Glory of it all

Inside the Inbetween

Heads up: I didn’t really write this on New Year’s Eve, 2010. I actually wrote this in July, 2011. I love the date changing capabilities. Thanks Blogger!

I’m catching you on my life, and this is the best way I can think to do that. Or at least, it’s the way I feel like doing it.

So, back to New Year’s Eve. 2010 was crazy. wild. weird. a year to remember. a once in a lifetime experience.

We started the Colorado Trail on Monday, June 7^th and it was incredible! I cannot even explain how amazing our time on the trail was. Unfortunately, it was also short-lived. My knee was injured Friday, and thankfully we made it to a trailhead Saturday. Two extremely nice guys picked us up and drove us all the way back to Littleton to our Tahoe. They really were heaven-sent!

Of course we were extremely disappointed. Heart broken really. We had been so set and so excited about our journey that to have it cut short by something beyond our control was terrible! We weighted our options and decided that our summer was only ruined if we let it be. So we created plan B! This is how plan B looked:

15000 miles in 2 months. We slept in our Tahoe most of the time and took showers at National Parks and KOA Campgrounds. Oh, and we lived almost entirely off of McDonald’s Dollar Menu. I can’t stand the smell of Mickey D’s anymore. Yuck.

After wrapping up our Grand Tour and visiting family for a few weeks we came home to our warm, homey… extended stay hotel room. Interesting to say the least. We moved in to Colorado on August 7^th, and El found a job pretty quickly. He started on August 15^th and we moved in to our rented townhouse on the 19^th. The whole process didn’t take very long really.

We met and became good friends with Bubba and Paula. They’re pretty amazing. I think they pretty much rock.

I got a job at WAY-FM, a Christian radio station, at the end of September.

Life continued. That brings us to now, New Year’s Eve.

My oldest- little sister will turn 16.

In the next half a year, El’s friend Chris will move in with us, and then move out.

We will meet new friends Jason and Rachel. They are amazing. 

We will be under contract for a house for over 3 months, and still not know if we actually be able to buy it or not.

We will visit El’s sister and her family in Reno, NV for Easter.

My mom and sisters will come and live with us for about 6 weeks.

Life is amazing.

Changes in Motion

  Like most people, I have oodles of goals, plans, dreams, ideas, hopes... sometimes it almost seems like life is just too short for it all. I just happen to be one of the lucky few who married someone similar.

  Anyway, we’ve recently been evaluating our current life in comparison to our goals and dreams. And sadly it seems that we’re a bit off track, which is why we've decided to change it up a bit.

  For starters, we aren't attending Rhema Bible Training Center anymore. Yes, I know: shock, confusion, disappointment, you're-out-of-the-will-of-God... ok, are you done now? Good. It's not like we didn't pray about it. It's not like we made a rash decision. We prayed, listened, had a peace, and followed it. Now we're able to put the money we had been spending on RBTC on our credit cards, or savings, or toward accomplishing some of our short-term goals.... which brings me to another point.

  Now that we have more time and are focusing more on accomplishing some of our goals, and learning Spanish is one of them, we splurged and bought Rosetta Stone Levels 1 & 2. This means I should be speaking Spanish in 7 days + 10 minutes. {For those of you who are slightly less radio-commercialized, the software takes 7 days to be delivered, and they promise you'll be speaking your new language in "10 minutes or less!"} We'll see how that goes.

  Also in that ‘goals' category falls 'move out of Oklahoma'. The less politically correct version is ' get the heck out of this boring, flat, barren state'. In June we will be gracing the beautiful state of Colorado with our presence. We have quite a plan in mind.

  At the end of May we will move out of Tulsa and drive to the Denver area where we'll stay for about 5 days. We’ll rent a storage unit and put everything we own there, we won’t look for an apartment, and we won't get a job.

  Instead we're going to go on an insane journey hiking the Colorado Trail. It’s a 485 mile trail through the Rocky Mountains, stretching from Littleton, CO to Durango, CO. I really can't wait! I'm so excited!

  So, changes are in motion. Once again, I’m breaking the mold. And I love it.

Of Sidewalk Musicians & Sore Mucles

  Last weekend we drove the flat, boring 73 miles to Oklahoma City, and somehow ended up in a magical, almost whimsical, bit of forgotten life. Downtown OKC seems like a million miles away from the normal, dirty, gang-ridden downtown scene.

  El and I wandered through the narrow streets, listening to the clip-clip-clip of hooves against the brick-paved roads, the high-pitched ringing of bicycle bells, the low rush of water as bright yellow gondolas passed underneath our bridge. There's a tall red-head in a black velvet dress playing violin on the street corner. She has quite a crowd gathered around her, and her small son, dressed in a mini- tuxedo and top hat, is playing with the coins left by appreciative listeners. Just past her is a lanky bicycle-carriage driver. Judging by his passenger’s curious looks and whispers, his dread-locked hair and big smile are fascinating to them. White lights are reflecting off the river beneath us, where a guitarist is singing and couples stroll down the sidewalk with eyes only for each other.

  We stand there for what seems like hours, until El gently tugs on my hand and reminds me that we both need some sleep.

  By the next morning the magical remainders of our night have long vanished, now replaced with a crazy, silly, excitement. Pack the bags, check out, and head to the water park! Windy, warm morning... perfect for hitting the water slides. The sun lives up to expectations, keeping us hot and darkening our previously fading tan. Eight hours, a foot-long corn dog, and the best workout I've had in months, we finally head home to Tulsa. And I can hardly move. Talk about aching muscles! I hurt in places I didn't even know I could hurt.

Our weekend still isn’t quite over… now we're headed to the drive-in movie theatre. and then home. and sleep.

Justice

  Why is it that some people get away with so much, and nobody cares, and others get away with nothing and everyone cares?

  Let's look at presidents versus sex offenders, just as one example. Our presidents can misquote a word, mess up their grammar, pass a law that you don't like, shake the wrong person's hand... and EVERYONE knows and EVERYONE seems to care! It's all over critics' blogs, newspapers, headlines, international TV. Honestly, who really cares? And why does it really matter?

  Newsflash: you are NEVER going to like every bill passed, every policy created, critics are called critics for a reason, and have you ever tried to give 25 speeches in 30 days in front of 6 billion viewers without messing up? Come on... get over it!

  HOWEVER. Sex Offenders are a whole different ballgame. On the local news last night a 2-time convicted child molester was caught with his 3rd known victim.

  In ‘91 he was convicted of sexually molesting a child. Again in 2007. In addition, he has been caught and convicted two different times for failing to register as a sex offender.

  FYI THAT'S A FELONY. Did you know that if you have a felony on your record, and you get convicted of another felony, you are supposed to go STRAIGHT BACK TO JAIL?

  Apparently, that's a laugh. For all of the above charges, this man has only served one sentence. For the first offence he was should have been in prison until 2021, but loopholes allowed him to get out in 2006.

  For all three following felonies, one for molesting a 9 year old girl, and two for failing to register, he was acquitted once and let off on plea bargains twice. He did not serve ANY time for those.

  This past week he was caught with his third known victim.

  Tulsa County District Attorney's comment? "If I knew then [when he was convicted of molesting the nine year old girl, and then subsequently convicted of twice failing to register] what I know now, I would probably have pursued the case farther."

  Mr. District Attorney? My comment back to you:

  It's a little late for that. Thank you for trying to keep our families safe. I know that you didn't view him like you view armed robbers, and mass murderers. I mean after all, a mass murderer's victims die! A rapist, a child molester... their victims are still alive. I know you didn't stop to think that maybe they wished they were dead. I know you didn't stop to think what it would do to you if your little girl was taken by this 'gentleman' and raped. I know you would rather a minor thing like that happen then the downtown gang members get shot. I know its a lot less trouble to just let the poor guy off when he bows down and says he's guilty than stick him in prison for something as silly as not telling people where he lives. I know it wouldn't be a big deal to you if your wife disappeared and you never saw her alive again, all because you didn't know that the friendly neighbor next door was a serial rapist. I know you were putting the well-being of Tulsans at top priority.

  Please, Mr. District Attorney, next time you decide to make us top priority: don't. We’ll understand.

story

–noun

1. a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.

2. a narration of the events in the life of a person or the existence of a thing or such events as a subject for narration.

3. a narrative that follows a set pattern of three main parts: introduction, climax, conclusion.

  Someone once told me that the definition of a story creates simply a story, but the difference between a good story and a masterpiece lies in the phrase "and they lived happily ever after."

  It seems a lot of people have a misconception of that phrase. For some reason completely unknown to me they think that "living happily ever after" should come at the end of the story. I don't understand this reasoning at all. Ok, maybe I should say I don't agree with this reasoning at all. Their line of thinking usually follows along these lines: Happily ever after implies that life is great from this point on, there will never be another unhappy moment, never another argument, never another tear shed or heart broken, or a hint of danger, or a sense of the new or unknown.

Most people believe that the story is over, so they stop writing.

  My line of reasoning is more along these lines: and they lived happily ever after. Whoever heard of a wonderful love-filled life that hasn’t endured heartache and tears, broken people, danger? If you think that those times spell a bad life, then please, put the magic phrase at the end of your story. Stop writing! The only problem with that is... if you stop writing, you die. You end your story. Yes, you may still be breathing, but you have stopped living.
So, back to the beginning.

  Someone once told me that the definition of a story creates simply a story, but the difference between a good story and a masterpiece is that a good story ends with "and they lived happily ever after."
A masterpiece begins with living happily ever after.

4. Life.