Hold on tighter if you're going my way, oh!

Err, ahhem, anyway. I am finally done my exams, papers, tests, quizzes, classes; everything. I'm done school for the semester. Which means I have a whole summer ahead of me to just work, make money, and spend time with my family. Of course that family only consists of a dog and a husband thus far, but eventually that will get bigger . . . I hope. That's a really odd part of my life lately. I have been obsessed with babies and children. I mean, I'm only twenty one, my maternal clock is really not ticking that loudly. In fact it's probably only barely begun, right? Anyway I am always seeing babies lately, adorable beautiful little babies. Lots of times I see them with their daddies and those wonderful men snuggling their children and feeding them; all I can think about is how absolutely heart-fillingly amazing it is going to be to see Brady with our little girl or boy sitting on his shoulders or cradled in his arms. Of course Brady's very huff and snuff about this but, I KNOW, I know that he is going to be a wonderful father one day. I think that he tries to downplay any sort of desire for children because if we start to get too excited, we might just end up with one. Kinda like how we ended up with a puppy...

SO I cleaned the house today and did a butt load of laundry. I even made the bed, which is Brady's job since I'm too small to make a queen-sized bed(or so I say... but you know, it really IS hard!)I am now plotting what to make for dinner. Honestly, though, I think it's going to end up being left overs because we've still got two dinner's worth of leftovers. I really feel like chicken and veggie stir-fry, though. It will be a toss up, I suppose. See what Brady thinks. Sometimes he likes to eat the leftovers as lunch, so maybe he'll want something new.

Also, I need a hobby! I am going to go crazy this summer if I don't work like 6 days a week. I won't know what to do with myself!! Ah, but it's so nice to be able to sleep in, relax and not have to worry about how badly I'm procrastinating at any given moment. Joy!

<3 Sara

Bleh. I am SO TIRED OF SCHOOL!! I don't WANT to write these papers and I don't WANT to take tests and quizzes or write finals. Blargh! But I will persevere! I think it's probably just this one research paper, twelve pages, should have something like 9 or 10 sources but I think I have 6. Very frustrating. Plus it was due on the 30th and I won't pass it in until this Monday (a week later) on the 6th. So I'm already going to get like 5 or 10 points off for that lateness. Arrgg!! And I'm falling behind on vocab for Hebrew. YUCK.
Okay I'm done ranting :D

<3

Know what drives me nuts? Is when people, in class, decide that they have far more interesting and profound thoughts to share with the class than the professor. I have to debate with whether or not a freshman girl who's all of about 18 years old has more doctrinally sound ideas than a 60-something professor with a Ph.D. and 40 years of experience. Really? REALLY? Plus, when people think they're comedians and the class is actually laughing at this person's ridiculousness, not their 'jokes'. Also when they take things personally, and start whining that the prof is 'attacking worship leaders' or whatever leaders. Hello? We're in college so we can LEARN to be BETTER LEADERS. Of COURSE a majority of class will be spent critiquing leading methods. If you want to learn how a congregation should be 'better' then go to Sunday school. Jeesh. If you already know everything and the professor has nothing new to teach you, WHY ARE YOU HERE?!! You're wasting your money, and to be frank, every time you interrupting MY LEARNING PROCESS by trying to argue your (dead as a horse being beaten futility with a STICK) point you are wasting MY money.

Okay so that's out of my system :) I guess school has really been getting to me lately. It's been harder and harder to focus in class and I am finding myself less and less interested in doing anything in preparation for papers or projects that are due in the near future.

Bah. I am like one of those people who drives me nuts and says "School just wasn't for me."


I've been drawing, a lot. Especially since right now we're enduring a modular class, which is like 6.5 hrs of classroom time a day for a week. So basically I just doodle the whole class (on TOP of paying attention to the lecture, of course) I have a lot of doodles, let's just say.
I wish they were good.

Pft.

Anyway, I haven't updated in a very long time, so I thought I should :)

love ya!

I was on facebook today and I randomly found this link to a virtual beauty contest encouraging girls to post their pictures to this group and have them voted on. The point being that someone will 'win' with the most amount of votes.
It struck me that this is some pretty . . . self deprecating behavior! I mean, I'm not trying to be materialistic or shallow here, but there were some photos (yes I peeked through them) in which beautiful young women were posing like sexpot, porno rejects. Not to mention some seriously innocent looking teens. Of course there was a variety of girls ranging from those who looked like they could be models to those who in today's society are treated like ogres because they aren't size 0 or don't have perfect bone structure, the most expensive hairstyle or clothes. Its so frustrating to see young girls putting themselves through that!
And I know exactly how they feel, because as a twenty year old, married woman I was looking through these girls vying for 'facebook's prettiest teenaged girl' and found myself feeling uglier and uglier. With every snapshot of a gorgeous teen, I wanted to be anything other than my boring, less-than-perfect self.
I hate this. I hate the way the world sees beauty. I know I feed the cycle, I want my hair styled nicer, buy nicer clothes, wear makeup and whine that I want to look like the gorgeous size-0, photogenic women on television.
When I speak to someone, I look into their eyes, I talk to them as though they're a perfectly equal human being. Yes, of course, I notice weather they're esthetically pleasing to they eye according to today's standards, but I don't treat gorgeous people better than those who aren't considered gorgeous. Nor do I treat the 'gorgeous' worse. I don't think that treating people differently is the problem. It's the desire to be something we're not.
Is Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie or Rihanna perfectly happy with how they look? They have millions of fans, millions of girls doing everything they can to resemble these sexy, successful television, movie and music stars. But honestly, I don't think that just because you make a million dollars per episode or sell a zillion copies of an album that makes you perfectly immune to self-esteem issues. Seriously, why do you think these women pay for people to make their hair perfect and buy the newest makeup, the best clothes? It's not because they don't care what the world thinks, that's for sure. They're trying to impress, too. They must (of course I don't know this for certain) feel inadequate when their rival wears a prettier dress, or someone has a nicer hairstyle than them. I'm sure they look at the television or heck at their co-stars and envy their eyebrows, hips or cheeks.
It seems like a perpetual disease for women; we can't like what we have, we always want something else. It's like some sort of terrible pandemic that we can't seem to escape. It's incredibly sad and what's worse is that the people we try to fashion ourselves after probably aren't in many different shoes than ourselves (except with their zillion dollars to have every material thing we dream of and more)

I am a confident and intelligent woman. Why is it that those are nto hard things to label myself with, but beauty is so difficult to grasp? Why can't I look in the mirror and be satisfied? I can look at my test scores and feel proud, I can look at my friends and know that I am loved, look at my husband and know I've found my partner in life because I have a GREAT personality.
But when it comes to beauty, I stumble every time. I have no confidence to say that I am anything above plain-Jane.

My husband took me by the shoulders the other day after I had been talking about getting my hair cut into a new style for a couple of days.
He turned me to face him, gave me the most loving, adoring look that as I think about it now almost brings tears to my eyes. His blue-green eyes gazed into mine with nothing less than absolute devotion. He tilted his face so his brow touched mine and he said softly, "Do you want to change your hair because you don't think you're beautiful enough?"
I of course denied this, being the confident woman that I am (and obviously flawed) I hate to admit my difficulty with my own self-image.
"You are beautiful." he said with a power and ferocity that warmed my heart, "You are gorgeous, and I love you."
He has said this often over the last few days as I've tipped into a (I'm sure temporary) lapse into self-hatred. I could not ask for a better man and I thank God that he's mine.

I am beautiful. NO matter how many magazines say that my hair is too drab,my thighs are too wide, my eyes aren't blue enough, my nose is too crooked, my teeth aren't white enough, cheekbones aren't high enough or my smile is too wide. I can't compare myself to people who pay millions of dollars to do what I do every morning before class; change the way they look because they're not satisfied. I refuse to model myself after the world's idea of beauty.

I am beautiful.

Maybe if I say that enough times I'll believe it.

:)

Okay so I just got word that the last of my friends from freshman year are NOT returning. That makes me the only one of our 5 person group to be returning. Now, that might not be so bad except for the fact that I am now married and no longer living in dorms. Being married and having our own apartment also means no socialization in the cafeteria. The dorms and the caff are the two best places to socialize. I am officially terrified. I am not going to make any friends just going to class and working. Well, working I might, and I do like my work place and my co-workers so far so that might not be too bad. Except that I work in town and live out here on campus. -_-
Life is a CRUEL CRUEL thing.
I guess I have the husband :) That's always good and he's positive I'm going to make a ton of new friends despite my cut-of-from-the-world'ness'icity.
I am not quite as assured as him, but I trust him. Plus I still have all my guy friends (or most of them anyway) And also my brother and Brady's sister will be here too I guess.

Haha, I love how I start to whine and complain and I realize as I'm writing that things aren't nearly as bad as I thought they were. Sure I'll miss all my girls, but two of them are liable to come back at SOME point and I am a very amiable girl who gets a long with EVERYONE. So it shouldn't be too hard to find a friend . . . right? ^^;

loves from here,
ALU.

Why do I always screw up? You know, I boast about having the right balance but in truth, when I think I'm doing the right thing, I always end up screwing up. I mean why can't I just do one damn thing right for once? I'm so freaking tired of messing up all the time. And then I think I am dealing with my own screw up properly and it turns out I can't even do damage control right. I mean, what CAN I do right? Well, I sure know how to mess up! That's for sure. But not very comforting, really. . .

And now, now I can't sleep. All I can think about is the look on his face when we said goodnight. I tried, I tried so hard to make it right. I said sorry all the ways I could, I tried to hold his hand, I gave him so much opportunity to talk. I walked with him even when he refused to talk. I didn't stay sitting when he said we had to go, I cooperated, I listened. And when it had been silent for too long, I tried to start a conversation. That bombed too. I gave him a hug, two hugs actually. I said 'I love you' and I said 'goodnight, sleep well' twice, even. I gave him a kiss, he didn't kiss me back.

I'm sorry for what I did, but if he's forgiven me, shouldn't he act like it? I am just so torn, I don't understand, it just isn't fair. I thought I did it all right. Was what I did really that horrible? He's done it too, we all have, why can't he just forgive me? I'm tired of feeling like such a failure all of the time, tired of trying to make things right and just falling short all the time. Why can't I just do something right for pete's sake?

I'm just so damn tired, and now I can't sleep.

As I sit in my room, my bare legs and arms, hair wet from the shower and the wind whistling outside my window, I listen to my roommate sing.  Her voice is a melody that stirs my heart; every tone a blend of heartfelt faith and trust in her Saviour, Christ. Every word sung with love and adoration; my bare arms tingle and the hair raises as I let the music flow through me.  Her talent on the guitar compliments her angelic voice as she continues her praise.
She is a young woman of true faith. She may struggle, I presume, from time to time, but her faith and trust and adoration of the Lord, her Saviour, is so evident and genuine. She calls Jesus Christ the lover of her heart, although I myself am foreign to this term, I cannot fault her effervescent faith and the purity of her confidence in Christ. I wish I had faith like that. That's not to say that I don't trust the Lord, that I don't know He's there, but I... I suppose I just can't express it like she can. I admire her for that.
She flows gracefully from a song she has written to blackbird and then back to another; entailing the rich man who desired to live forever as he pleads with Christ for the secrets to eternal life.

I want to sing too, but my voice is broken and raspy.
I wish I could sing like that; sing with my heart and my soul.

Brady and I are getting married. :)
He proposed to me on January 12th, 2008 and we'll be married this July (2008)
I am so incredibly happy, and so is he. We're thrilled and can't wait to start our new lives together this summer!!

much love
xoxo sara

What was wrong with the first one?
Wasn't she pretty enough, sweet enough, kind enough?
Didn't she love you enough?
Of course she wasn't perfect, but no one ever will be.
You made a vow to her, you held her close, you loved her once too, didn't you?
You cherished one another, loved and adored, you laughed and cried together.
Planted seeds together, watched them bloom together. You watched those seeds grow from small tiny grains to flourishing blossoms. They weren't perfect either, but no one ever will be.
And then you threw it away.
You decided it wasn't what you wanted, what you needed any longer. I know she played a part too, I know, but why didn't you try harder?
Those seeds you'd sewn, you didn't think of them very much, did you? You didn't realize your actions would crush their leaves and blemish their stems.
You pulled out her roots, you blocked out the sun from the sky, you withered her leaves.
And now you want another; another one, another she to love for a while.
Will you throw her away too? Plant seeds with her, then discard them as well?
Now I face the same vow that you once made.
To cherish and adore and hold and love.
Because of what you've done, I will always have a little burning seed of fear.
Though I love him and all that he is with my very soul and life and everything that is in me to love; I trust him implicitly
There will always be fear.
You taught me to love, you taught me to throw away love.

You taught me that those you trust the most can betray you.
That those you trust the most may be something they do not appear to be.
The things one says may not be true, that a vow can mean less than a seed on the wind.

So I face this decision, and I choose to press on.
To prove that you're wrong.
I'll prove, we'll prove, that a vow means more than that, it means forever.

But I still love you.