Chilling for the weekend.

Hi all! I'm not going to do a post today, because the topic I had in mind is a bit too heavy for my current mood.

It's also one I'm constantly bumping my head against, so I'm not really feeling like doing it in writing again. But maybe next week, I'll be doing it.

In the meantime, though, I want you to please go check out this post on my other blog. It's my attempt to actually try and change something that annoys most people I know.

Okay then! Have a GREAT and blessed weekend!

Done.

I've been pondering relationships again, as I do quite often.

It's just one of those things I need to think of when I'm writing.

Anyway, recently I got around to thinking about it and... I'm not really sure I like what I'm realizing.

Now I wonder if I'm expecting too much. But I'm realizing that it's probably one reason why I tend to be a bit of a hermit.

Why? Because although I find people endlessly fascinating, I sometimes have to reaallly work hard to remind myself of why I like them.

Honestly.

So...

I'm now changing relationships. Backing off from one that I thought would last forever. Kind of looking at another more closely.

And FINALLY terminating my relationship with the church choir. Yes. I did this before, but after giving it almost a year, things have only improved inasmuch they're not delivering their shitty little comments over my phone just yet.

Here's the thing. I'm done. Being nice for the choir leader and staying until after the service, but after that, I'm finished.

And similar to that, I'm done with people telling me I'm over-reacting about things that I'm justified to be angry about.

I'm on a strict diet. So when I choose to break the rules, it's not okay to receive something I didn't order. It's especially not okay for someone to make bitchy comments when I complain while that person is sitting with 90% of my. order. But refusing to switch because the 10% she got was what she liked. 

The contents of my room are things I managed to scrape together over a life-time. Or otherwise they're gifts. It's not okay to just dump them on my oil paintings. or pallets. (Yes. Both happened.) People need to stop acting as if I'm disproportionally angry about it when it's a) not their stuff being ruined and b) not their art being destroyed. And no. Cleaning my room because the maid is too half-assed to pay attention isn't an option. Because if it was, and giving that part of my salary goes to paying her, here's the logic stretched a few milimeters further. Why don't I just stop painting altogether to accomadate madam because she wants to dump stuff on my desk instead of my bed as I requested. Twice. Why don't I stop living in my room so she has less work to clean it. Or why don't I paint marvelous splotches on canvas and leave them in this person's room so the maid can dump her stuff on it?

If someone borrows my car. It's not okay to spill a drink on my carpet. It's also not okay to ignore me the first two times I mention it (as in pretending I said NOTHING) and then accuse me of whining when I mention it again, louder, hoping to get at least a reaction. It's also not okay to park it wrong, causing me to scrape the car (because where else can I steer it when I have 1 cm in either direction) only to have the gate crash into it because I had to pull out slowly in an attempt to minimize the damage. It's not okay to pretend my anger and impatience to be unfounded. It's the first car I had in almost four years. I think I'm entitled to care. Even if, as one friend "kindly" pointed out, it's only an earthly thing.

It's not okay for a church choir to try and make me sing softer while I'm still learning because they (INCORRECTLY and KNOWING it) sing too soft. It's not okay that I am constantly being "corrected" when I'm one of three trained voices in the choir. It's not okay that this happens pretty much to only me. It's also not okay to accuse me of not being committed. I gave it a year. I didn't sign anything saying I have to do it for longer. And no, they didn't win because they finally made me crack. They lost, because their voices can't carry the high notes.

And let me just get this point out once and for all.

I react strongly, because I care. I care about my things. I care about my family. And my friends. I care about the teams I get involved in.

I can't stop caring. I wan't programmed that way.

But just because someone is too blase to care about something doesn't give them the right to judge me for caring or the way in which I do it. In fact. It makes them wrong, because while they all put up with crap and think it's okay, I have a life to live.

And I'm living it to the full.

Strong emotional reactions and all.

I have many more important things to do than to put up with all this petty bullshit that people keep slinging my way. So I just won't.

Anyone else feeling all done with noxious aspects to relationships?

Why my faith choked out.

This post is long overdue, but every time I picked a date for it, I was unable to post on that day. So here it is.

As I mentioned before, I had been struggling to keep my faith alive for months until recently and it took a revival in my spiritual life for me to figure out why.

And the reason is frighteningly simple.

James 2:26 (King James Version): "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

So... yes... works is necessary. Not to get into heaven, but simply to keep your faith alive and thriving.

Does that mean that I could have saved my faith months ago by giving money to beggars in the street? ... Not necessarily. Because I haven't been called to give money to beggars in the streets.

I've been called to help the kids in my church's youth. To help the "newly" converted find their feet. To use my voice to praise Him.

In the past year, I for all intents and purposes was blocked in every way I tried to do the two former works I'd been called to do. And the latter... well, made me feel hollow. Because it's a bit hard to focus on praising when there's always someone trying to pull me down whenever I refuse to conform to their standards.

So yeah... I spent a year basically unable to do what I was meant to do and that knocked my faith down. Badly.

That changed a few weeks ago when a new youth pastor arrived. Although I'm sensing resistance yet again, I now see it coming, so I'm going to fight it with everything I have. And if that fails, I'll go around. But what I won't do is lay back down, because it's so not worth the aggravation caused by choking faith.

The fact is, my faith coming alive changed my life again, because I got the opportunity to serve under one of the three choir women most intent on bringing me down, and because I did it in a nice way, a peace seems to have been declared. So now I'm actually enjoying the choir again.

And I joined the Youth Band.

And I'm more actively involved in helping the youth.

My faith is thriving.

Does your faith have purpose? When you're young in the faith, your purpose is to learn as much as you can. After that, you'll probably discovered what you've been called to do.     Is something keeping you from doing it? Are you/your doubts holding you back? Is there something you can do about it? Pray? Change your outlook? Move through your doubt?

I hope this gives you some help and answers, and if you want/need some prayers, please feel free to let me know.

Have a blessed weekend!

My First Finished Oil Painting

I mentioned a while back that I'd move over to oil painting as soon as I settled. Well... I finished my first one in years and I must say I quite like it.

As promised, I'm showing what it looks like, and here it is:

Anyone else been indulging their creative side?

Siiiiiiigh. Do I live on Mars? (Ranty. Be warned.)

I was planning to think up and write something special today, but sadly that was ruined by my mood. Which in turn got ruined because the people supposed to clean my room just dump stuff where they want.

And today they wanted to dump my bags on my pallet. Full. Of. Oil. Paint.

No one else in my house seem to get my issue with this. But then, I don't really see any of their stuff threatened to be ruined.

I WARNED the people to be careful of the wet paint.

I packed certain things away under my bed for a reason: that it's the safest place for them to go. So why must those things be thrown onto a DESK where they don't belong?

And why is it so difficult to understand that there were colors on that pallet I might NEVER be able to match? Or that I might NEVER be able to clean my belongings if they're made out of cloth? It's not a small thing.

I don't actually own so much that I can just shrug and throw things away.

Seriously.

Why am I the only one who gets what's upsetting me?

Because they're paid to clean my room. Does that mean that I now have to tell them not to? Rearrange my life to either never paint over weekends because they clean on Mondays? Rearrange my life to severely restrict my time to clean the room THEY'RE paid to clean? Because when I say there's a wet canvas doesn't mean that the paint that didn't get onto the canvas is as well, in their minds?

Really?

Really? 

And seriously now, I'm more upset with the reactions I'm getting. Because it's totally not worth paying attention to when it's just my stuff that got damaged. 

Not worth getting upset about?

Maybe I do live on Mars.

How things are going with my new tablet.

I'm writing this post from my new tablet. So far I'm enjoying it quite a lot, even though it's taking some getting used to. Not all of the buttons are where they were before, so typing can sometimes be a bit of a pain, but I must say that it's a lot more comfortable blogging from my bed than it used to be.

Only thing that's getting to me a this stage is moving the cursor to where I want it to fix a mistake. Still, I'll probably master it soon enough.

No... you know what? Blog writing is better done on my laptop. But it's good to know that I'll soon be able to do a post from anywhere if I needed to.

But yeah, it's definitely a lot more fun to use a laptop for certain things.

Writing something, for one. But it's amazing to be chatting or reading blogs on something that weighs almost nothing. So that's definitely what I'll be using my tablet for. And business. Although I've so far been too lazy to try and configure my business e-mail account to the tablet. But it will happen.

In the mean-time, I've also discovered a nifty little app where I can remotely log into my laptop using my tablet, so that has me pretty excited. Because then I don't have to worry about not taking edits with me, since I can just access them via the internet. ^_^

But yeah, I'm still just turning the tablet into my home away from laptop home, so do you have any suggestions for some more interesting apps?

Have a great weekend, all! X

Chasms

Siiiigh... it looks like Wednesday postings are a bit of a problem for me. Yesterday was incredibly busy, but I kept thinking I'll at least do a post before my smallgroup meeting. Except I got a call that I have to go to band practice 90 minutes before that.

So now I'm trying to think how I can change the schedule to work for me. Scheduling ahead doesn't work, because I rarely have the time to sit still and churn out 8-9 good posts.

On the other hand, it could be a run of bad luck that has me missing my Wednesdays, so maybe I should keep trying for a few more weeks and then if they still don't work out, I'll put some serious thought into changing up my schedule.

In the mean time, I can quickly talk about something I've been thinking about in relation to my previous post.

Credit

Periods of transition are like chasms. You're on one side. Where you want to be is on the other. And in between there's a gap. A wide one.

Some people see those chasms and doubt make it to the other side. They look at the distance they could fall and fear. Then they either stay stuck where they are, wishing they were where they want to be. Or the walk away and pretend to be happy on their side of the chasm.

But here's the thing: God makes the impossible, possible. Jeremiah 32:17 (King James 2000 Bible) says: "Ah Lord God! Behold, you have made the heaven and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm, and there is nothing too hard for you."

If we're supposed to get to the other side, He'll give us what we need to do it. He probably won't pick us up and put us there, because if He did that, we'd never learn a thing and take our rewards for granted. But the fact is, He wouldn't hard-wire you to want to get to a specific place in your life and then leave you without options.

But here's the thing. We need to look for them. The options we have aren't always obvious. And once we find them, we might need to work on them. Sometimes there's a bridge hidden out of sight. Other times there are resources you'll need to build them.

And other times, and this is the hardest, we need to jump. The chasm might be too wide and God will help us over. Other times it turns out the distance wasn't as great as we imagined it.

It's actually all too possible, when we trust that God will give us the way.

Have you ever reached a chasm in your life standing between you and your dreams? Did you stay where you are, walk away or find your way across?  

Change

Credit

I'm at a strange point in my life. It's about a year after I finished university, it feels like I'm really hitting the transition phase. You know the one?

All my friends as getting married or are having babies. Most of us are drifting away from each other. And it's sad. For the past five or so years, I relied on them, laughed with them, cried with them. We were there for each other...

But every day I realize more and more that, although we'll stay friends and I'll have great memories to cherish, the season on most of my friendships is now autumn. Maybe some of them will make it back to spring soon, but I think most of them won't.

It's just that... well... we're spread over the world, doing our own things. Living our lives. Without each other. Making friends to fill the gaps left by our friends of old.

I guess that's why I'm feeling this change so keenly. For the most part of last year, a large part of my life went on hold to build the business I now work for. My social life suffered for it and I didn't meet new people my age. Now it's different. I can afford a life again. And with it came an opportunity to start making new friends. But in the mean time, there's this gap that I'm still having to fill.

It'll happen. But in the mean time, I'm having to spend more time either working on growing new friendships or alone. There's no time where I can be just in between with someone. And it makes me quite lonely.

Still... there are many opportunities as I get more involved with my church and my community.

But that's not the only thing that's changing in my life. My professional life is going from strength to strength, but my music is suffering a little because of a lack of time. But at the same time, my work gave me a frame around which I could stretch my time to finish edits. And yes. They're done. I have a finished manuscript. So all in all, not bad. But this is the time when I have to let my manuscript loose on the world. It's when I have to focus my work more in an attempt to be even more successful. It's when I have to look at my art. At what I want to write next.

All this is so At the same time, it's a little scary, because transition means something else. I get to shift priorities again. Do I change my goals? Set new ones? Do I decide to spend more time on friends or less on art? Or do I find friends (somehow) who understand my passions?

This is also the moment when I take stock. What's worth it? What's not? Because before I do that, I can't decide where to go in the future. Granted, I'm pretty sure I'm happy with the way things are going so I might not change much at all...

Anyone else reaching a transition in your life?

Big fish, little fish

Hi All! So sorry I didn't post yesterday! I wish I have a good excuse, but nope. I'd forgotten it was Wednesday. *BLUUUUUUUSH*

So... anyway. Because I'd been skipping so often, I decided to stop that bad habit and just do a post today.

Edit: and then I realized that I didn't post it yesterday either. >_< I think there's a leak in the back of my head and my brain cells are slipping out.

I've been struggling with this nagging feeling of discontent lately. It got to a point where only a very select few people didn't annoy the living daylights out of me. And it really started to get on my nerves.

But then I had a moment of clarity and I remembered something pretty important: I am bigger than those petty annoying squabbles. And I have more important things that can take up my thoughts instead. I'm pretty sure I will be annoyed again, because the people who annoyed me aren't going to change.

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Which is sad. Because a quarter of them often happen to be my family. But here's the thing. People are inconsiderate. And mean without realizing it.

And I'm one of them. I say and do things that I think is fine that probably irritate people as well.

So instead of worrying about things, I should just focus on what's important in my life and get on with it.

It makes a pretty big difference. Sure, I still get super annoyed. It's sadly a fact of my life that I have a short temper and an incapability to tolerate b.s. and stupidity. But. Where I used to hang on to it, I've been letting go, because there's no point to worrying myself about all of this.

In theory. Of course... habits are hard to break, so I'm having to relearn everything. Which might be a good thing, because I'm getting ample opportunity to practice....

There's another aspect to this, though, but I've had a tough couple of days, so I'll get to it on Monday. Promise! But the point is, whenever people annoy me, I just remember one thing:

I have bigger fish to fry, and if I don't let go of the sardine someone in my life pushed onto me, it will just kick up one hell of a stench...

How do you prevent petty issues from growing bigger in your life?

Where I went this past weekend

Hey all, I'm back!

So... sorry about the lack of posts. Ran out of time before I could write them. But hey, I think they'll be pretty good, so at least you have something to look forward to this week. ;-)

In the meantime... I thought I'd share a few pictures of where I went. They're not all that good, because the good ones will become paintings, so you'll get to see them later. ^_^

If you're wondering, that's a telephone pole and a nest at sunset. No... ostriches didn't start to fly. It's actually a communal nest, where hundreds of birds live together because there aren't any trees in the are. They can apparently be quite a nuisance, because they mess up the phone connections. So yeah, this bit is pretty dry, since it's well on the way to the Kalahari desert. About a mile further on, there weren't anything to see except telephone poles, grass, fences and shrubs. But the moon was full and the grass almost white, so the earth seemed to glow. Sadly it didn't show in the pictures.

This was taken at a restaurant inside a nature reserve. The rock hybexes were so tame that they scurried past under the table to get to the delicious green plants. At least I assume they were delicious. Thankfully, this little guy stopped munching and posed for me to take a picture.

Quiver trees, so named because the Khoi-San used to cut them to size and hollow them out to carry their arrows.

The real reason to go up north this time of the year: Flower-time in Namaqualand. Interestingly, this wasn't taken too far away from the nest picture above. About a thirty minute drive south from that spot leads to much greener pastures. And orange... And yellow... and purple. If you're wondering, yes. This picture is of thousands of daisies in bloom.

Basically I spent this weekend surrounded by various types of beauty. It was truly inspiring and REALLY has me wanting to pick up a paint-brush...