Late nights and weary minds

Well now, it has been quite a long time since I've written.  I cannot honestly say that many things have changed, except for the fact that my summer job is finally over.  Now I can fully concentrate on classes and raising my son.  

Classes are going alright - only one of them is a communication class toward my major, so thats kind of a bummer.  I am in a business statistcs class where all the examples are from the financial sector (gag me!) and an organizational behavior class that is quite interesting.  As well I am taking introduciton to theatre, a class that is entertaining but quite time consuming.  

I was so excited a few weeks ago - I am in a community production of the Sound of Music.  I actually have  a part!  I am Sister Margaretta, and it is so much fun.  I was involved in musicals in high school, and I have been acting for as long as I can remember.  It is really exciting to have my first real part with people whom I adore so much involved as well.

The other big project I have going on is crocheting.  Haha that makes me sound like a little old lady.  I am making a blanket for my son.  He is going to grow out of his toddler bed soemday and I am making a blanket to fit the next bed.  I started an afghan in 2005 and it was really pretty pastel colors.   It never failed though, every time I worked on it I got a massive headache and was unable to work.  So I decided to rip the thing out and create a whole new creation.  The only downside is that i have to crochet 1800 or more hexagons and then sew them all together.  But I guess that will give me soemthing to do when the weather gets cold =) .  I'm about a third of the way through making the hexagons and now I've finally started sewing it together.  And boy does it look nice!

It is not exceedingly late, but I am at my wits end.  Down time is something I lack greatly, and enough sleep is hard to come by.  My son is asleep, I have a weekend in which to do my homework, and I am going to see my brother tomorrow.  I am headed to bed to dream sweet dreams about the man of my dreams.  


But will he ever realize I'm dreaming of him???

The beginning of another year

School started two weeks ago.  I cannot believe I have finally made it to my senior year!  This semester seems as though it is going to be on the easy side ... as long as I keep up with my work and read what I need to.  I don't think I'll have an issue with it, however one never knows what will transpire in the next few months. I talked to my advisor on Friday and I think I have an internship set up for next semester!  Woo hoo!  That means that I will have some practical experience to go into the workforce with.  This won't be the average internship, but I might keep a running log of the fun things I get to do on here.  We shall see how my time progresses.

In other news, I read a great book series recently.  It was "The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever," and "The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever."  As I'm sure you can figure out, they are somewhat related.  I have to admit though, the first book in the first chronicles took a lot of time to get through.  I had to slog through a lot of background information to get to the action.  But once I got there, the books were great!

I have also recently decided that I am going to take a trip to Lake Forest, Illinois sometime.  Jim Lovell (Apollo 13 commander and man with the most hours in space aside from those who have stayed on the international space station) has a restaurant up there.  He is one of the men I look up to most.  I have read his book, Lost Moon, and the things he dealt with to get into the space program amaze me.  As well his life story is one of interest.  It could be that I am just interested because someday I'm going to go into space.  That was always my goal as a little girl, but somehow that fell to the wayside.

Well, the little guy is asleep and it is time for me to retire for the night as well.  I have most of my homework done for the week so I should rest up now.

To all of you who read this, whether it is purely by accident or on purpose, God Bless you.  I hope you have a wonderful day!

It's just one of those moments

So it's way too late for me to be up tonight, but I still am awake.  I'm watching Apollo 13.  It is one of my all time favorite movies ... actually, one of my all time favorite historical moments ever.  The story of the crew and the struggles they went through, and all of the people who came together to get them back home is a tribute to the human race and the way we feel for those who are in trouble.
Anyway, I just finished the movie, and I feel pathetic.  Every time I watch the movie I cry at the end.  I cry when everyone is waiting for the shuttle to reply to the calls from mission control.  I cry when they finally arrive safely in the water.  I cry when I listen to Tom Hanks give his speech at the end.
I've read the book, I've seen the movie, and the story still amazes me.  I can't seem to get over all of the struggles those men faced, and the ways that they overcame those struggles.  

It's just one of those feel good moments when I think that maybe the human race isn't as hopeless as it seems some days.

Rainstorms

So for anyone living in the area surrounding me, we got hit was a massive rainstorm at about 4:00 today.  My brother has a paper route and I was delivering them for him, and I was in the rain.  
I have to say, it was completely exhalirating to be in the rain while it was storming, getting soaking wet, singing at the top of my lungs.  I had my MP3 player in and I was jamming to the soundtrack from Wicked.  Specifically the song Defying Gravity.  I think it struck me as very ironic because I'm finally starting to learn to just take life as it comes and that I CAN fly, in whatever I do, no matter what others think of me.  So I want to end with part of they lyrics that hit home today ...

So if you care to find me
look to the Western Sky
As someone told me lately
Everyone deserves a chance to fly
and if I'm flying solo
at least I'm flying free
to those who'd ground me
take a message back from me
tell them how I'm defying gravity
kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity
and you can't pull me down.

what makes a man?

I had this question posed to me the other day:

What do you think makes a man?
Do you believe it's a physical change?
A spiritual enlightening?
An emotional maturity?

I thought about it long and hard and I came up with an answer.  

I believe that becoming a man takes all of those things combined.  Without the physical change the boy will not have the strength to become the man who takes care of things around the house or around the workplace.

It takes a spiritual enlightening for the boy to realize that he is not he creator, nor does he have the ability to make things happen any other way than they are supposed to.  The spiritual enlightening brings a boy to the stage where he can ask for help from someone else and he is not afraid to show his emotions.

As well it takes an emotional maturity coupled with the other two.  The maturity only come when the boy realized that just because he shows emotions he is no less of a man.  There is no harm in a man crying at a happy occasion, when he is sad, or with someone when he cannont change something.

So in closing, I believe it takes all three of those things to truly become a man.  Now, with that being said, there are those who just dont' have the physical capabilities because of disease or birth defect, or something .. however htey too grow physically, just not to the extent of other men.   That doesn't make them any less of a man.  Just different.  And it takes all kinds of men to make the world work.

Because I knew you

I've  heard it said
That people come into our lives
for a reason
bringing something we must learn
and we are led
to those who help us most to grow
if we let them
and we help them in return
well I dont know if I believe thats true
but I know I'm who I am today
because I knew you .....

I am only 22 and yet I feel like my life has already been lived.  I feel like I'm never going to get out of the rut that I'm in.  I want to find someone to love, someone ot be with.  I want to know that someday I'm going to wake up and see the love of my life beside me, smiling back at me, or holding me close.

Okay, so I started this post yesterday when I was in a really dark place.  Today I feel better.  I feel as though I am punishing myself for something that I can't go back and change.  I've taken responsibility for my actions and I have repented from them and faced the consequences.  Now why can't I forgive myself?  And the other thing that bothers me - why can't I totally forgive the other party?

Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting, because in forgetting you are giving the other party the opportunity to hurt you again.  But forgiving is so much healthier.  Forgiving means that you have totally taken the right of the other person to make you feel bad and crushed it against a stone or something.  Forgiveness means that the person who hurt you no longer has control over your emotions because you don't let them.  

I have a long way to go to make myself a new whole woman again, but I think this is the start of an interesting journey.  Hopefully I will come out in the end as a stronger, more caring woman.  I hope these changes will help me to grow in ways I've only dreamed of growing.

Irritations

There are so many things that irritiate me lately.  My best friend tries to be helpful, but instead says the wrong thing and irritates me.  And when I try to politely tell him to buzz off he gets irritated with me and then he won't talk to me again.

I'm irritated that I still have a year of school left.  I want so badly to be done so that I can go out and start my life.  I have heard it said that there is a point in schooling when someone says "it is time to be done!"  and I am at that point.  I didn't feel that way after high school - I was excited to get into the thick of college and get on with my life.  Well, that didn't happen exactly as I had planned.  I turned into a single mother still going to school and still living with my parents.  Don't get me wrong, I love my family and I don't know how I could do this without them, but at the same time I am so tired of depending on them for what feels like everything.

I have spent weeks this summer digging up the return lines for our pool and we FINALLY have it fixed.  After 2nd degree burns on my back, countless hours wallowing in mud and clay, massive amounts of dirt and yuck, and it is finally done.  And now I can't swim.  It is 90 degreees outside and I can't get into my pool because there are other people using it.  

I don't feel like i have accomplished anything this summer.  I have a job, I have a child, I live with my folks and I don't feel like I've done anything.  Dad asked me to help him with a website and I haven't had the resources to do it ... and I just looked at it and he tried to do it and it's just not quite up to the standards it needs to be.  I love my father but he has no idea how to make things readable and the pictures are too big.  So that is yet another thing that I haven't accomplished in my short summer vacation.

I feel like a failure at everything I do.  It would be nice if for once I could feel like I do something well.