sleep?

A friend once told me that he thought introverts probably got a lot more sleep than extroverts because after we hang out with people we're energized and have to wind down. (sorry for the run-on sentences, i've been speaking a lot of spanish and am tired. and in spanish run-on sentences are actually proper grammer.) Tonight that is definitely true for me. It's 0:42 (or 12:42 in the morning), I have a flight that I need to leave for at 7:00 am, so 6 hours, not to mention getting up and awake (and the film that I have to return in the morning, since we had film night tonight and we had to rent the film this week). I am fairly wide awake, but writing this realizing that tired or not I had best get some sleep right after I make a list of what I need to make sure to grab before I run out the door in the morning. Uf!

malasaña

so, i've been a little down today. mainly i'm exhausted because i haven't been sleeping well or enough. so i asked a couple friends to pray and then ran out on some errands. the Lord is so sweet to me. one, just the right music happened to be on my ipod from the last time i listened to it. i was going to turn it to some more melancholy music, but alas my fav enter the worship circle cd was on, so i listened. then i had to walk through one of my favorite neighborhoods of madrid. it's right by my apt, bohemian and hippy/trendy. fun stuff in the windows of boutiques, at 5pm its right after lunch and school so there are kids playing, people out and about, dogs running, it's sunny, and i do love where i live - the architecture, the ambiance. and i've probably been down bc i've been tired, bc i'm a little frustrated with certain aspects of life right now (ok, just the boy area), i have a lot on my plate the next few days and i'm tired, i have a long list that has yet to be tackled for today, and i've been inside too much today, not enough green space and sun. so... no, nothing has really changed, but i have a fresh outlook and am reminded of the great place i live and of all the things yet to be explored. :-)

more happy, smiley songs

feist - "1234"


regina spektor - "on the radio"


regina spektor - "better"

blogging...

Okay. So, yes, I'm going a little nuts tonight in the blogging department. My roommate's grandma died today. I'm am hormonal and sad. And what I usually do Monday night is temporarily suspended until November. I should have gone running or something but instead I'm home blogging, something I haven't really done for awhile. I haven't really had much time to do so. But now... I seem to need to. So, that's what I'm doing. Unless I can't sleep, there probably won't be much more for the next week or so, because Monday night I am actually around, but we'll see...

the unknowns of life

be forewarned, this is definitely processing at its finest, or not so finest nor thought through. it's just pure thoughts as they come out. just to forewarn you:

some dear friends of mine left this morning for the states. they've been here the past 2.5 yrs and have become dear friends and trusted colleagues. they have a one and a half year old who was born here and they're going home to go back to seminary (for a phd) and to figure out what is next.

i'm so grateful to have gotten to know them and also grateful to have been blessed by them in countless ways. yet as i sit here, granted exhausted (which is why i'm taking a little "siesta" of sorts) and granted emotional, i'm a little introspective. in two weeks i'll turn 34, which somehow seems to be a big year. i mean, it's a year before 35 and 35 seems way too old for me to be. ever. particularly being kid-less and husband-less. i mean, 90+ percent of my life i'm next to fully content with being single and i actually LOVE my life, just the way it is. and i'm not by any means just enduring it. in many, many ways i'm thankful that i've had time to be here and to do a lot of things that i probably wouldn't have had time to do nor freedom and flexibility to do if i were married with kids. that said, 34? i mean, if i want kids, now is the time, no? and right now i think i could be ready. and i think i'm willing and desirous of that life. it's kind of a hard thing, and i guess in some ways good that you don't have it all just planned out ahead of time. i mean, i want to get married and i want to have kids, if the right guy comes along and really is THAT guy. if he doesn't, i still desire that life, but i'd rather never marry than to settle or to choose something lesser, even if that means never having kids of my own. and yet at the same time, now more than ever, i can see that that life means exchanging some of my flexibility and "freedom" for giving to others and little people, which at least today i want, the little people that is. and all this connects with my friends leaving in that they have a little person and my other friends leaving soon have two little people. and i DON'T feel like i'm wasting my life by any means, but in some ways, some little ways, i'm not sure my life has fully begun. i mean, i was thinking at the gym last night that i have probably NOT lived half of my life yet. i could get married in a year or two from now and have kids and have a whole different life than i've yet to know. crazy. or something else i have no idea about could happen. who knows... definitely not me.

so... what i actually meant to be writing about are the unknowns of life, which right now seem like a lot. the fall is a huge unknown - who will i be working with? what will my fall look like? the summer is a little unknown, but for the most part figured out, just some of the "who's" and "when's" are a bit unknown. and then the between the summer and fall is a little unknown, or at least what may or may not happen. then there are the next couple years. there is the boy situation. there is how that will play out, or not. there are the boy situations of some very very close friends... all of it unknown and way way way out of my control. i honestly don't know even how to think about it. and, thank God, that He actually remains a true constant. He doesn't shift nor change nor change his mind nor move nor step away for a time. He is FULLY and COMPLETELY present and active. no, i can't control him. no, i can't always figure him out nor understand WHY. but He's Good, really GOOD. and He love me and knows what's best for me and others. and he has a plan and a will. and He listens to me and cares and hears me. He holds me. He works in me, around me. He goes before and behind me. HE DOES know the plans ahead, whether it be the fall or the summer, or next year, or twenty or eighty or a hundred or a thousand or billion years from now. He KNOWS. and he cares. and as i've been reading a ton lately in psalm 106 & 107, he is gracious and merciful and faithful even when I am not (not that that justifies my wrong-doing, but it does give me confidence and peace that it's not all about me). i can't mess it all up. i'm not that powerful. and thank God that i'm not.

so, i've been reading about prayer recently, specifically i've been reading A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller (no relation). it's good, by no means rocket science but just real life wisdom. good stuff.

i think i had some other thoughts, that were probably much more profound than what i actually wrote. but this is me right now, just processing life, seeking to trust God and to walk by faith, taking Him at his word, trying to allow the Gospel to define my life, trying to allow God to lead me, and taking one day at a time.

twins

I´m presently babysitting. And while I love to do so, I´m realizing that two sick five month old twins can be a little bit of a handful. They are sleeping but every now and then one of them will cry and I´m supposed to then go running as fast as I can to soothe him, find his binkie and reposition him so he´ll go back to sleep and not wake up the other one. This is a little more complicated when it´s dark and they are already not sleeping too well because of all the congestion.

Now, after having written this, I´m not quite sure why I´m posting this other than I think it´s crazy that I go running as soon as one of them cries. I remember some other friends of mine who have twins (who are now about 6 or 7 yrs old) and I think I remember that they were of the philosophy that it was better to let kids cry a bit so that they learn to soothe themselves back to sleep. Somehow I´m liking that philosophy right about now. As for now, just thankful that both haven´t yet woken up at the same time.

a quiet, lazy day

what i'm drinking right now... :-) a homemade iced café latte. and since it's a holiday here, corpus cristi, i'm enjoying some time to read, to relax, to listen to some sermons online, and to plan out the menu for my birthday party tomorrow night. :-) right now i'm listening to a sermon and enjoying my yummy coffee. :-)

Otoño - Fall

i love the fall. while there are no fallen leaves or leaves that have changed color quite yet, there is so much i like about the beginning of a school year, the starting again. i guess it is the beginning of a new year and the hopes of what that year will bring.

i love the energy of people getting ready for new classes, the new semester, and all that comes along with that.

and after summer break, i am always ready for the hustle and bustle of the university campuses to return to normal, to come back to life from the quiet, deserted days of summer. you can just smell the excitement of fall in the air.

the highway, autopista

recently when i am on the highway, either in a car or on the bus, i think of the US and my life there and here. i try to remember what the highways look like in missouri or kansas and somehow in my mind i create a morph of the two. it's kind of a funny thing. i think of what my life is and what it would be life, possibly, if i were there. crazy. i usually end up thinking, i have a crazy but amazing life and while i miss home from time to time, i love where i live and what i do. i feel very blessed and honored. :-)

random thoughts & happenings from today

so... first thought is from an older man i ended up talking to on the bus on the way home from Cobeña (a small town outside of madrid, where i have a meeting about every thursday morning). apparently the lilies you see pictured here are calla lilies (or calas, in spanish), they aren't peace lilies, while i'm sure they are related.

i'll have to write more another time about the adventures he told me about before he retired. oh, and by the way, he had a whole huge bouquet of calas he had taken from his garden in their country home to take to his wife who was ill in their home in the city. it didn't sound like she was doing too well, but the flowers were beautiful! oh, and to give you an idea of their size, they were about the size (each) of my two hands cupped together. now granted my hands aren't huge, but still. and their stem was about the circumference of a nickel or quarter. and he had at least 8-10 of them, along with some of their large, rich green leaves. very beautiful.
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another random thought is that i am somewhat insane. as i'm learning about myself, somehow i have crazy ideas that seem fully possible and reasonable to take on (or maybe i just don't really think about whether or not it is reasonably possible, i think i like the challenge of doing the impossible). so, somehow i decided it would be a great idea to MAKE my dress for the wedding i am going to on saturday. i didn't really like any of the dresses i have. so, i figured i could try to make one.

i bought fabric and thread and such on tuesday morning, cut out half of the pieces yesterday, cut out the rest today and began sewing. now truth be told, I am just about done. i have to finish the skit part of the dress, put in the zipper, and then just make sure it all lays right and fits me. oh, and i need to buy some shoes as well. i have no idea where the time actually came from to do this, but considering it is now 2:00 am, it makes a bit more sense. (by the way, if it turns out the way i hope, it should be really cute. it should look more or less like the picture above, but with a green lining, like an olive green, and then a shimmery golden green semi-sheer overlayer. it looks a bit more formal than the pictured dress and should be at least fairly long. and if it turns well, i'll most likely post a picture. :-))

as i said before, i beginning to really enjoy my sewing machine i got this summer. and while i may be mildly insane, more often than not these crazy ideas actually pull through. (like when kelly and i decided to catch up with some guys who were heading to the mountains in santiago, chile. we had no idea where we were going, but i figured we could figure it out and that asking some of the locals would eventually get us there. long story short, we actually ended up ahead of the guys (who had left at least an hour and a half earlier) and did in fact make it to the rocky mountain that we also ended up sliding down (unintentionally) about half way. it was a fun, crazy time that i actually really miss.)

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in addition to the older man with the flowers, i also met a guy from israel on the metro (which i took after the bus to get home) who asked me for directions. apparently he owns a hostel in nicaragua, likes to take pictures, somehow had a couple day layover in rio de janeiro, had 4 hours to spare in madrid before heading back to hypha, israel, for passover. interesting guy. we talked in spanish for a bit and then when he realized i was an american we finished talking in english.

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another random thought... i probably should get some sleep.

milk?

milk. i am one of the many people who is lactose intolerant. meaning my body and milk don't agree.

and, unfortunately, i am hypersensitive to lactose, aka the protein in milk. it doesn't as much matter the quantity. if it's there, my body will let me know. butter, cheese, ice cream, cream, dry milk, whey, you name it, if it contains milk, or whey, or lactose, it is no good.

there are some combinations that are a little less painful, like cheese and wine. somehow the wine helps the digestion of the cheese. and sometimes, from time to time, sometimes with reason and some not, i decide that the joys of a tasty dessert, not inconveniencing my dinner hosts, or some tasty spanish cheese outweigh the affects and repercussions my indulgence will have on my little stomach.

as i said, sometimes i have sound reasoning and sometimes i am a bit diluted. every once and awhile i just decide to pretend that milk doesn't in fact bother me, somehow in my deranged logic thinking that mind over matter will help out.

so, take for instance this past sunday. my kind roommate anna made chocolate chip cookies, really good chocolate chip cookies. but chocolate chip cookies choked full of butter and milk chocolate. not really a good mix.

i woke up and my stomach still hurt a bit from something i ate the night before, which must have had some milk somewhere in it, so i thought, "oh, who cares." i never eat anna's cookies and for what ever reason this day they sounded INCREDIBLE! so i grabbed two and as another roommate adeline looked at me oddly i said, "oh well, my stomach already hurts. this might make it worse, but it already is upset."

they were yummy. and before i left for some planning meetings i grabbed two more. yum!

i then was at basically two days of planning meetings setting the direction for ágape madrid and (again, since my stomach was already upset and i didn't want to offend my host and i was hungry) ate some of the cheese and crackers they had out. and again it was good. somehow, it bothered me but i had a mild reaction.

and the saga continued for a few days. my stomach was already upset and i was tired of denying myself the pleasures of milk (mainly just cheese and chocolate chip cookies) so i didn't. it wasn't non-stop gluttony, just a piece of cheese here and there.

it is now thursday and while it hasn't been continual, the last cookie i had last night is still causing havoc on my body and is not just a milk reaction, it is full out war. so, i think it's over. yes, as always, i come back to the fact that it really does make the whole world a much better place if i don't have milk, at least for awhile. sad, sad, sad.

Randomness & Blogging

So it seems like I'm kind of going to town on the blogging tonight. I've had a kind of intense evening, so it's nice to just type about nothingness or at least light subjects. I can't promise that I will keep this up, but for tonight you have some of my random thoughts.

Okay, while I am up and wide awake (despite it now being 2:31 am, and yes I do have to get up at a decent hour in the morning) I might as well write at least 2 more little posts -- New Year's Resolutions, how I spent my New Year's Eve and maybe after that some more serious thoughts about my life these days.