Sorry its been so long!

Well its been like 3 years since I've last posted in here! Crazy! Since then, I've gotten married and a little over 3 weeks ago we had our 2nd child. We have 2 daughters now, the first is 18 months old and the 2nd, like I said is a little over 3 weeks old.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."~Charles Dickens in the opening lines of "A Tale of Two Cities"...This passage basically explains the way I have been feeling. It feels like the only way to discribe how I feel lately is to put it into a drastic contrast. I'm not complaining though because even though it may be the worst of times, its still the best of times too and that is what I'm holding on to. :)

A bunch of stuff

So basically I can't seem to keep my word about writing in here as often as I'd like to. Aside from being busy, I have been suffering from a mad case of writer's block! With that said, I think I received the anecdote for writer's block today for at least the time being. It shouldn't come down to this all the time though.
I had one of those days today where I experienced emotional stuff and a whole bunch of it all at once; where I just had no idea what to make of it. Times like these are when the writer's block takes a break for a while and I fall deep in thought.
For lack of a better word, I was a bitch today. It happens but I really did not have a good reason for it this time. I made plenty of excuses for my bad attitude but the reality was, I was choosing to be miserable today. "Little Miss Sunshine" decided to be a cloud today. Not cool, my friends. I'm usually the one who promotes positive thinking and I just didn't care today.
There wasn't anyone who said or did anything at all even remotely unkind to me today. Actually everyone was ridiculously nice to me today. At work, there was a little going away party for me (since it was my last day there today)...I got a beautiful card from the staff and a teddy bear. They bought me a delicious cake. I was supposed to hang out with a dear friend of mine today and I didn't go.
I have an amazing boyfriend who treats me like gold. I have nothing to be upset about, really.
Not really sure what was up today. Whatever it was, was just not cool at all. I am glad though that I was able to stop and think about it and realize that even "Miss Sunshine" needs to be careful. I ruined a perfect day for absolutely nothing.
Sure, being on a diet and exercising isn't fun for my personality but that is no reason not to be happy and to ruin a great day.
Well in conclusion, I've learned a valuable lesson today and just thought I'd share that for those who are following. :)

Lack of fascination usually means time for an attitude adjustment

As always, I apologize for not adding a new entry sooner. A lot has happened between then and now. Many times I will try to write something about what is going on in the news and/or things I have noticed or learned based upon personal experience but lately, I've been going through a whole bunch of nothing. The news has also been, a whole bunch of nothing. I refuse to write an entry about the Tiger Woods fiasco. I have much better ways to waste my time (such as Restaurant City on Facebook). I could go off on my opinions of how the ratings of Good Morning America are going to sink because of losing two members of the best team the show has ever had all in the same week and replacing them with two anchors who just do not have the charisma. To me lately, its just been a lack of fascination. Nothing is really interesting anymore or at least in recent days. I cannot write about my personal experiences lately because things are unfolding but haven't really unfolded yet. Job searching in this economy really sucks but we all know that and are sick of hearing about that.

I am starting to wonder if maybe an attitude adjustment is needed. I find myself becoming rather cynical lately. I loose interest in the day to day because I can see how it can be better instead of truly appreciating what it is or was. It's almost like being an optimistic pessimist to a fault. I went to hear a speaker yesterday and some of the things that she said really hit home for me. One of them was about how when we pray and we do not get an answer, maybe we are asking the wrong questions. I never really thought about that before. I thought that was an interesting concept. Lately I seem to pray and ask for specifically what I think will enhance my life but then when I do not get the answer I want, I miss out on the answer that was given or perhaps I'm missing out on what I was supposed to learn from getting a no. Sometimes getting a no from God can be the greatest of blessings. Not only do we value from learning obedience but also from whatever the underlining reason for the no was. Sometimes just change the question. Instead of perhaps, "what do you want me to do?"...ask "what do you want me to learn?"...things like that. I'm sure it will make all the difference. At yesterday's conference that I went to, the concept of JOY was a big theme and I realized as happy as I am or at least try to be, I am not really a joy-filled person as much as I'd like to be. To be joy-filled is different than being happy. If you are filled with joy, you are still cheerful even around adversity and confusion. I can be but its too much of an effort. I can't wait until the day where it just comes naturally for me. And just like all things, that too will take time.

Caring enough to be Cruel

So I've had to deal with an interesting topic a lot lately not only in my life but also from stories that people have told me over the last few weeks or so. So today's topic is "Caring Enough to Be Cruel"...sounds twisted?...well it is. Ok so my question is why do people always have to use cruelty to get a point across? I'm not talking about physical abuse, I'm talking verbal. Instead of using uplifting verbiage, we talk everybody down to try and bring them up. We care so much that we scream at them. We want to help so we insult them. We want them to know that they are beautiful and deserve better so we tell them that they should be on a diet or that they are naive. You think they can do better so you tell them that they are lazy and stupid for the choices that they make. Etc...this list could be a very long one. I notice that I slip into this too a lot of the time. It's very difficult to be uplifting and motivational in a society and culture that is so negative and indifferent to people's needs. But we need to try. I know in my own life it is sometimes difficult when someone tells me something in a cruel way to try and look beyond that and think of their purpose for saying it. Often they really care and want what they think is best for you. They might, and often are right but there is such a better way to go about saying it.

Socially Awkward

Lately I've noticed an epidemic that is spreading faster than the swine flu. It's an outbreak of social awkwardness. For those of you who are not aware...Social Awkwardness is a condition where a person does not know how to properly react with other people. I think the recent outbreak has much to do with the internet and social networking sites such as dating sites and such. The reason is that people usually default to taking the easy way out of things. If its easier to type what they have to say instead of saying it, then they would rather do so. People would rather chat online than talk on the phone or meet for a cup of coffee to discuss things. I've noticed that in my own life, I've fallen into the same category to some extent. I have a mild case though. I still face who and what I have to face but there are plenty of times where I find myself forcing myself to call instead of texting or sending an email. I actually have caught myself texting or even writing letters to certain people just to deal with them instead of interact with them. I would rather sometimes send a text just so I can get to the point faster and get a quicker response than to have to go through the "formality" of the "hi, how are yous." But when it comes down to it, I always can still get along and do and say what I have to. I'm not too far gone yet with that. I'm trying to put a cap on it but since I notice it, its not too bad yet. Some of us can't though and that is something that is getting worse and is spreading quickly nowadays. Being socially awkward within the social medias is yet another phenomenon that I've also noticed recently. Why do certain people give thumbs up for everything and comment on everything you post yet you never really have had a real conversation with them? "De-friending" is actually taken seriously and people sometimes end up "de-friending" in real life after they "de-friend" online. Since when is that real? Now I'm guilty of online dating. I'll admit to that. It was a little easier because you could actually read profiles and see what a persons interests were (and here's the key) without even asking them. I could find out a lot without interacting at all with them. Then instead of just talking, you instant message. So you are still not even really talking to the person.I could scroll through just like I'm shopping online and see which one I might be interested in instead of dealing with them really, like interacting and finding out the hard way. See its an example of taking the easy way out...there isn't anything necessarily wrong with it. Technology is a great tool but we have to be careful that we do not become socially awkward people and become over dependent on it to the point where it seems a lot of people are getting to where they are faced in situations where they have to be able to just deal with it and they can't.

In Medias Res

Sometimes I have a difficult time coming up with something to write about. I'll log onto my blog or sit down to work on my book and I just have no idea where I want to go with it. I logged on here today and noticed that I haven't added an entry since October 16th and thought, "wow, that's not cool." I usually have a lot to say. I guess basically I've been just in the middle of things lately and not really sure where I'm going. I guess a lot of us can relate to that so I figured I would write about it. There are times in our lives where things seem to just all get kind of crazy all at once and everything just starts to change. It's not necessarily a bad thing but to be honest, it can be a little scary. Sometimes you get faced with some really difficult decisions where you know what the right thing to do is but its still not the best choice for your situation. Well that is where I'm at now. I made the right choice but it was one of those where you actually have to take a hit in order to do the right thing. I still did what is right but I'll be the first one to admit that its not really easy sometimes. This was a little extreme. I'm glad that I was able to stand up for my faith like that but the consequences of it so far have not been enjoyable at all. It's one thing for people to say "oh she's crazy" and laugh about it, its another when they say "WHAT?! YOU'RE CRAZY!!!" and they are screaming at you. The latter is what I've had to get used to hearing in my life especially lately. But the thing is, we see the puzzle pieces all scattered about and they look really messed up. Sometimes we feel like we are falling to pieces. God's great at putting puzzles together and while we just see the pieces, He sees the finished puzzle. So we are trying to figure all of these things out in the meantime and try to put it together by ourselves without a picture to look at...Quite frankly, it just doesn't work. That's alright though. I decided that no matter how weird things get, I'm just going to keep praying and just trust that God is going to put it all together. It doesn't have to make sense to me. That's where faith and trust comes to play and it seems like lately those two things are getting put to the test. I am not always patient and I get worried sometimes but I'm not giving up and I know that somehow its all gonna come together. As for today's title, I decided to go a little classical (not to mention really random) and throw in some Latin for the theme of my life "In Medias Res" = "In the Middle of Things."