Don't you believe?

I don't know. I just have so much going on right now. Work is crazy and all I can think about is Romans 8:31 "If God is for us, who can be against us" And I feel like the brick wall that they're all beating against, but I'm tired of getting beat, but it's not me that they're beating on, it's God, give it to God, He'll take care of me and I remember Isaiah 40:31 "Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength". And I think about my friend, the insomniac, who thinks she is slowly going crazy and I want to tell her Psalm 62:1 "my soul finds rest in God alone" but I don't think she even would know what that means, much less actually go for it, just do it. I feel like I rely on God more and more, which I know is right, what I'm supposed to do, I just feel so overwhelmed sometimes. And I have a hard time voicing how I feel about God. How I believe and that's all you have to do too. How He is such an integral part of my everyday, and if you would just let go, give it to him, you could have peace and joy and comfort too. But how do you do that? How do you teach someone to let go? How do you convince them that it's God, it's not you, that got you here? I can quote verses all day and they uplift me and give me peace and hope and joy, but how do you show that to someone else? I ache so much for this person that is hurting but she is so closed off, she won't listen, she doesn't believe. And it makes me want to cry, because healing is right there for her, she's looking for it, but won't take it. The Lord heals the broken, the wounded, all we have to do is accept it.

And then this other thing that I don't know what to do with. Is it a big deal? Do I blow it off or really push it? I pray that the Lord gives me wisdom cause I really need it right now.

of grace and music

slow smooth vibes
music moving through the air
and I'm trying to catch the drift
but it's more fun to float along without really knowing why
are the lights dimming or is it just me
coffee buzz buzz buzzing
dance with me
it feels like love
it feels like maybe we are losing the war
but battle by battle
I can see the ink flowing
true true it will never fade
true true I don't lie
sometimes this skin just isn't enough
to contain
it's all I can do to stay inside of me
to keep from spilling out everywhere
another incredible mess
epic
proportions
true true I could never be like you
true true I do believe
it's so quiet sometimes
all I can do is stare around this room
every book another story
another world waiting to be opened
posters promising
something
I caught a glimpse of my arm today
and it struck me as very skinny and frail
delicate
it might have been the shirt I was wearing
true true it makes no sense to you
true true it's all about the rise and fall

grace

We need your opinion

Check out this website

http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/store.aspx?p=38532

Click on the lower left hand where it say Jaeme and Brian Album and check out the first two pictures. They are currently in the running for the cover of our wedding photo album. We cannot decide which one we like better. They are both awesome, but both very different. So, by online poll we will try to make this choice. Feel free to check out the rest of the album as well.

A typical Sunday afternoon at our house

This was last Sunday, after I got home from work. Ashley has recently been allowed to chew gum and was trying to learn how to blow bubbles. She was also practicing 'ballet' and getting attacked by our herding dog who pretty much attacks anything that moves.

How to Tell You Are Backcombing Correctly

1. Your hair is so big people ask if you're wearing extensions
2. People say you look like Amy Winehouse (thanks Steve)
3. Water actually beads off of your hair
4. It takes a good ten minutes to detangle after a shower.
5. Yous hair hair looks so good no notices the rest of the hot mess!

Jitterbug Perfume

If only Priscilla the waitress were here now. I may just go find the perfect taco tonight. I feel like I'm eating everything in sight! It's crazy. Today I went into a frenzy of baking and made my friend not only Chicken Marsala but also homemade macaroni and cheese with big chunks of ham. I made tons and put some in the freezer for us, too. I want to get it out and eat it right now. My kitchen looked like a tornado hit it. So at ten o'clock at night I danced through cleaning it up as Strummer watched.

Amy has a beautiful baby boy. I held him for an hour. And just for a second, my mind wanders into, what if this were my baby? My baby was that was but didn't make it? And I think I'm doing so well, but then I start crying. And then she's crying telling me about a similar experience that she had. And it just happens, I'm doing good and I can tell some people like it was nothing, keep a straight face and move on and then others, for some reason, a word, a touch, a look, and I'm bawling, reliving it all over again. Why do some women get babies and some women get crushed hopes? I have another friend who lost her baby days after birth. I cannot imagine that. To carry to term and deliver, to think, maybe, just maybe, to see that face, that whole little person, and to lose them. And I know that God heals, but grief is a part of our lives sometimes. And the grief I feel over a baby that was barely alive, that existed for four weeks at most, is immense, I cannot imagine people that lose children that they have had for much longer.

So here's the other thing I was thinking about as I hit the curve from I-70 to 291 south. Some girls I know are so sensitive. I feel like maybe I am missing that and I wonder why. I've had girls say things to me about different things that they get so upset about and I don't think I wold have gotten so upset. I think maybe I am just a pretty even-keel person. I tend to be pretty mellow, maybe. Or maybe I've been on my own so much, on and off for ten years, that I'm just used to taking care of myself and dealing with things myself. I don't know really where this is going, it's just a random train of thought. But it ended with, I wonder if Brian would have like me if I had been as emotional dependent as some people are. And that's not a good or a bad thing, either way, just different.

Jay Awesome, my favorite anarchist will be hitching through town next week. It should be good times, especially since he is no longer vegan although I was kind of looking forward to the challenges of vegan cooking. So stay tuned for more on that. I'm going to go find something else to eat.

On the Agenda

Today -
sweep
mop
dishes
cook
vacuum
grocery store
make dinner for my friend that just had a baby
haircut
about 8 loads of laundry

Wow, sometimes it's exhausting running a house. I just finished sweeping and am still in shock about how much hair I swept up! Between the dog and two cats it's ridiculous in here and it's not like carpet where it just kinda soaks in, it just gathers in corners and under things with hardwood floors. I think you can just see it more with hardwood. It just means I have to clean more, but it also means that I'm cleaner. It feels good to get it all done, but its frustrating to spend your whole day off cleaning and running errands. But if I don't do it, it won't get done. And I refuse to live in a disaster like years gone by. So anyway, I'd better get to it.

Dreams that just don't come true

until the sun comes up...
inside - voices
I'm having agave dreams and stemware nightmares
its not enough
if I had a Cadillac
I'd wear a red dress and heels and drive into the sunset
if I could talk to you,
I would try
create a post, poet, prodigy, protagonist
If I had a nice pair of heels
I would give them to you
I would take you dancing
and show them how it's done

Un-freaking-believable

So here's a little back story. At work we just started a new program that books new and non-request clients by performance. So basically, before, they were booked by seniority. I was last on that list. Now they take your retail sales combined with your retention rate and book you in that order. And guess who came out second place in the department for the first month? That's right, little ol me. That meant that I, who have been on the floor for eight months, beat two people who have been on the floor for over five years, each. I mean, that's pretty good! I worked really hard to get there. The only person above me is the department head, who has been there for ten years. So I've very proud if this.

Cut too... I have a little book I keep notes in about clients, mostly new clients so when they come back in, I can remember them, they have this many kids, they do this, they're going on vacation, they just got a divorce, whatever. It helps me refresh my memory when they come back in, until I get to know them well enough to remember. Everyone knows I have this book everyone knows where I keep it. So I get in on Saturday and I notice that my file has been moved and opened. But I think maybe I left my cards sitting out and someone put them in there or something. No big deal. Until today I realize that someone has ripped out an entire months worth of notes! All of November! And that's the group of people that are coming back in right now, my November and early December clients. Pages just gone. I am so mad, and I really feel very betrayed. I mean, who would do that? I feel like I work with adults and this is just so low! I can't really see why anyone would want to sabotage me like that and it's not a huge deal, I will be just fine and I do remember most people, it's more perfunctionary than anything, but it's how I build my business and obviously, my business is doing great!

So anyway, someone at my work sucks big time.

punk rock history

Punk history doesn't need to be 'remembered' (written down for everyone else to read by the experts) for it is present every time a punk band plays, and drawing on long tradition, recaptures that ageless, timeless frenzy that makes punk rock matter in the first place. The facts and the details, the 'how we got here' are irrelevant and could not themselves enable the band to do this. The band must simply recognizes the timeless, crucial element that makes their predecessors music matter and learn from them that it cannot be caught the same way twice. All those punk history book and documentaries become immaterial when the band in front of you is doing it. The passion that you can see in the wild abandon of the best punk bands is an ahistorical force. It can't be explained in the terms of history and tradition - what they are doing is the tradtion of violating tradition, breaking tabboos in order to broaden the world.

That being said, I am once again pulled Craig O'Hara's "The Philosophy of Punk' off the wall and am looking forward to reading it again. I always discover something new.

Bugger the bourgeoisie

A picture is worth a thousand words. I was looking at a picture today that I took this morning of my daughter in her pretty pink princess dress perched ever-so-ladylike on the counter drinking a glass of juice. She stops and gives me a smile for the camera. I notice the background, how you can see my impressive array of cutting boards and Cutco knives. That the light seems to always be shining in pictures of my kitchen. I try to view my photos from another person's perspective.

I went over to a friends house for the first time the other night. It was a beautiful home in one of those newer developments. The ones that are still getting sodded. The couch was so nice. Big and cushy and new. The kitchen was shiny and pretty. All the furniture matched. I looked in the master bedroom and there was this big beautiful bed with the matching dressers and drapes on the windows. New. Shiny. Pretty. What they must think of my home, I wonder. My couch has been through almost as much as I have. In fact, I broke it even more the other day and now one side sits six inches higher than the other. There are stains and holes in it. My end tables are incredibly dull and mundane. My kitchen table is nice, but it came from the return section at JC Pennys and already had those scratches and we only have three chairs and they don't match. Ashley's bedroom furniture came from a friend who was going to throw it away if we didn't want it. Our bed in our room is very, very nice (thanks Brian!) but we have no bed frame or headboard. Our dressers were my ex-husbands grandfathers and they look like it. Squished in between all this, is the dog kennel. The walls are not painted, although I hope to soon requtify this. It's very hodge-podge, a conglomerate mesh of all the things I've managed to acquire in the last en years of so. None of it is new. The office is covered on posters, The Cramps, The Cure, The Misfits, Rancid, Bad Religion, and the Street Dogs. And I just wonder what the nice organized, well-decorated types think of us.

Then I think about my first apartment where I was lucky to have a couch. I decorated my walls with ripped up magazine articles and I never did the dishes. Or swept. And I think about all the people who less than me. Either because of circumstances or by choice. What so they think about all this? Do they think I'm selling out? Or buying in? Or maybe I'm just tired of cramped little apartments and giving my money to someone else.

And some people I know place an incredible value on what you have. And to some I have very very little and to others, I have so so much. I mean, to me, I have the world. But that has nothing to do with this hardwood haven that I wonder through at night.

So...does baking my own bread make me revolutionary or recessionary? Can I be a little bit of both?

Bugger the bourgeoisie, I've got an identity to maintain (change, find, mold, create)

Random

1 - I hate any and all applications. i will not do them I ignore every single one. On facebook and myspace
2 - Except Tom Waits Magic Trunk. That one just makes me laugh
3 - I just watched my dog eat a crayon
4 - I have had so many many jobs, including security at a nightclub, climbing cable poles to work on cable lines and face painting at the local amusement park.
5 - I really like that song by Miranda Lampert "Gunpowder and Lead"
6 - I'm actually a person who eats too comfort myself, I'm just lucky to not have to many sad things happen to me
7 - My dream vacation is either Japan, Italy or Bora Bora
8 - I listen to music constantly
9 - I take pictures obsessively, just waiting to catch that perfect one
10 - People tend to think that I am very artistic but in truth I'm a huge fraud. I can copy what others have done very well, but seldom am I an orginal
11 - I wash my hair twice a week, at best
12 - I am madly, madly in love with my husband
13 - I'm supposed to be organizing my office right now and paying bills
14 - I am tone deaf. Really.
15 - I have seriously considered being a surrogate mother
16 - I'm actually quite intelligent, I just never did anything with it, other than blog. I'm still waiting for that to take off.
17 - I am often gripped by an incredible urge to just keep driving. If Ash and I disappear one day you will know this is what happened
18 - I have a very high pain tolerance
19 - I am often surprised that my life turned out this way
20 - I own several hundred books
21 - I think the black cat is not coming back anymore. I haven't seen him since Thursday night
22 - I hate Joan Crawford. Those eyebrows!
23 - I read the bible everyday
24 - I hate my middle name
25 - People tell me that I have good stories
26 - I refuse to tag people in this note, cause I'm lazy
27 - I love to dance
28 - I think you should only wear high heels if you mean it.
29 - I mean it