Bel far niente- The art of doing nothing!

For the past few months, I've been in a routine. Not all routine is bad, mind you. There are perfectly acceptable forms of routine in which people partake in and enjoy. I used to have a routine I enjoyed; school, work, evening activity, home. It was a busy routine, but it was one that I enjoyed. Then, I moved. For the last three months, my routine has become one that I fight. I want to throw this routine down a flight of stairs. My days of late have been very predictable, of which I am not a fan. When did my life become so mundane? I live for the weekends, and not just to go get belligerent, but so that I can enjoy some social interaction with people my own age. In the meantime (you know, through the week), I need to find something else to entertain me. I have already looked at any classes provided by a community center, but they all conflict with the time that I am at work. Speaking of work, I love it. I really do. And that's a good thing, because otherwise I would be incredibly unhappy.

While looking for something to occupy my time, I have been thinking about traveling lately. A lot. I love to travel. I haven't had the luxury of traveling outside this country, with the exception of Jamaica and Canada (and I rarely count Canada as out of the country). However, this hasn't stopped me from considering myself a world traveler. I WILL travel. I have the biggest desire to traipse around Europe, soaking in all the history and beauty. I'm not saying America isn't beautiful in its own way, but it's just not Europe.

I want to explore Italy. I want to taste it. I want to breathe it is and relish it. I want to walk down a lane in Ireland and look out over the rolling hills and mountains. I want to get lost in a castle! I want to go to England and stand at the edge of the cliffs of Dover. I want to swim the English Channel (Okay, maybe not. I'd stand for kayaking a bit). I want to go to Germany soak up everything about the land my last name came from!

Rough news, I can't leave today to head over there. I discovered, however something I could do to pass the time. I can learn Italian. I already took two semesters of Italian in college, and have a decent knowledge of the language already. It's such a beautiful language; why should I not try and learn it? It didn't take long to convince myself. So, for the next however many weeks, I will be learning to speak Italian. A parlare italiano!

So, wish me luck on my newest endeavor!

Ciao!

Dependence

I came to a realization today, and a tough realization at that. While conversing with a friend, I was explaining how I feel that, as a Christian, I am terrible. Let's get things straight, I love God. Really, I do. I think that there aren't enough words, phrases, poems, or thoughts that can really go into describing how amazing God is. There just aren't. And my love for God, well, it's definitely not shown in my every waking moment of my life. Lately it hasn't been shown hardly at all. And this leads me to my realization...so get ready because here it goes.

I love Jesus. I love people who love Jesus. I love people who don't love Jesus. Simply stated, I love people. When I am around people who love Jesus and who live for Him, I flourish as a Christian. Fellowship is SUCH an important thing as a Christian, and I honestly believe that without it, we cannot reach our fullest potential in Christ. Fellowship strengthens us, challenges us, even humbles us. I love having people in my life that help guide my walk. Certainly there is no downside to that, right? Wrong.

*Sidenote* Do not think that I do not appreciate and wholeheartedly love everyone in my life who has acted in some way as a spiritual leader. I know that God put each and every one of you into my life, and I am more blessed than I know and can express. Thank you! *Sidenote done*


Well, there's no downside to those people, so don't think I'm saying that. The downside is my dependence on them. If I do not have my core group of people to guide me, I fail. I altogether stop feeling like a Christian. This used to happen when I would go home for the summer. I would be doing great spiritually, and then I would go home for the summer and just let God fade to the side. To solve the problem, I stopped going home for the summer. This worked perfectly, and my relationship with God only continued to grow. In August, however, I moved. I didn't think it would be too hard to maintain my relationship, and not only maintain but continue to grow as a Christian. I felt like I was so much further up on my "Relationship with God" ladder than I was when I was younger. I was wrong. My relationship with God has basically ceased. Not His side of it so much, just mine. I have been so angry at God for the last few months, when deep down I knew that I wasn't angry at Him, but at myself for being a sucky Christian. Here is my big revelation: I don't have a good relationship with God, even when I am around those people who encourage and help my walk. I have a good relationship with those people. They have a good relationship with God. So therefore, by association, I have managed to convince myself that I have a solid relationship with God. The thing is, a relationship with Christ doesn't apply in the whole "six degrees of separation". You can't have a good relationship with Christ because your friend does. I cannot piggyback my way into a relationship with my savior, and He certainly doesn't want that. God doesn't want me to come to Him only in my time of need, or when it is convenient. And he doesn't want to know me through another person, except through Jesus. God desires me to desire Him. He wants me to want him (Thank you, Cheaptrick!).

Here's the hard part for me. I need to change my mindset that I NEED people to help my walk. From this moment on, my walk with God WILL NOT CEASE if I never see another living person again. My relationship with God is not dependent upon others, but dependent on Him. I need to throw off my laziness and this blanket of excuse that I have been hiding under, and make changes in my life. I need to dedicate myself to constantly pursuing Him, knowing with full faith in the plan that He has for me. The amazing, exciting, perfect-for-Kelly plan that he has designed for my life! Tonight, I am putting my faith, my dependence, and my life back into Christ's hands.

It's Comcastic!

Today was a super exciting day, and by super exciting I really mean rather frustrating. I spent four hours on the phone with customer service reps from Comcast and Frontier, trying to get my monthly bill to be less than the cost of my first year of college. And do you think I am exaggerating when I say 4 hours? Nope, certainly not. By the time I got off the phone, I had to recharge my cell phone because the battery was dead. I had charged it ALL night, and by 1pm the battery was dead. CRAAAAAAZY!

When I left to go to work today I went to put Finn in his crate. He does such a good job going in his crate and usually he gets a treat. Today, however, I ran out of treats and felt really bad when he went in his crate and just sat, waiting patiently for his little nugget of chewy goodness. So, I just took him to work with me. I know, I'm a sucker. He did really well, and even got to ride on the Gator :) He growled at one of the players, but I think he totally deserved it. He's the player that constantly complains about being hurt, but never really is. Finn can sense weakness (He also gets terrified when 6'6 guys in shoulder pads and helmets run to him and try to pet him, and his response is to growl, fyi). He is laying on my arm now, and making it quite hard to type.

As for Penny (because I'm sure everyone is equally as concerned about my cat as my dog), I bought her some really yummy high end cat-food tonight. I thought it would be nice, since she hasn't gotten her usual amount of attention with a dog around. Right now, I can see the bowl with her delightful cat food on the kitchen floor...with the kitchen rug in it. She obviously REALLY liked her thoughtful owner's attempt at reconciliation.

Has anything else exciting happened today? Nope, not really. If my life doesn't get a little more exciting soon, I'm going to have to rename this blog.

Me, as of now!

For some reason, I have had the sudden urge to get back into blogging (not that I ever did it regularly, but we'll see how this attempt goes). After reading my previous posts, I wanted to just start over and make a new blog. Part of this was because reading my old posts is like looking back through a very cloudy mirror. The events are a little muddy in my memory, but more importantly they just don't seem that important. It's funny when you go through life and you hit those times that life just seems incredibly challenging and in a few years you have look back and want to laugh, asking yourself "What in the world was I thinking?" I won't lie, part of me wanted to remove those posts because of embarrassment. They are from a life that no longer exists to me, and I don't want everyone reading them. As I thought about it, though, I realize that it's important to keep the past in the past, but not to forget about it. After all, it's what has brought me to where I am today.

So where am I, today? Currently, I am sitting on my couch with a dog snuggled in beside me and a cat sprawled out next to my head. Apparently, it's naptime and I missed the memo. My cat is named Penny (also goes by 'Penny Lane', 'Penelope', and 'Get down from there, you Mongrel!'). She is roughly 2 years old and was adopted from the New Castle Animal Shelter when she was a kitten. She enjoys naps, eating, chasing invisible things, biting toes, and taunting dogs. The dog that is laying beside me is named Finnigan (but usually goes by Finn unless he is in trouble). He is the newest addition to my little family, and just came to me about two weeks ago. I was at a parade in Cambridge City when I saw this little dog walking in it, and he just tugged at my heartstrings. Two days later, he was mine. He came to me as Artie, but made it well known that he really didn't like it, and I agreed. He has adapted rather well to his new persona as Finn. He is a 2 year old wire-haired terrier. He likes sleeping, snuggling, running, and taunting cats. So, world, meet my little family.



Now, a little bit about my life. I moved at the beginning of August, 2010 to a small town called Dublin. It is a very quiet town, and quite a bit of a change from what I am used to. After living in Muncie for 6 years and having everything I need just minutes away, I now live 20 minutes from the nearest 'normal' grocery store. Sure, a few minutes down the road there is a little family-owned store, but for the sake of my pocketbook I try to stick to the big chain store that is known as Kroger. Anyway, my house is the perfect size for myself, Penny, and Finn.
I work at Connersville High School as the athletic trainer. I spend most of my evenings at school covering practices and games, and so far it has been great. I love the work I do, the athletes are great, and I have a lot of fun doing something that I love. Tonight we have a JV Football game and a soccer game. I generally don't have to be to work until 2ish, so I have plenty of time in the morning for getting other things done that need to be done. Important things, like blogging. And taking Finn for walks. And cleaning. My house is a pretty clean place. I want to start some other projects, one being scrapbooking. I am waiting to receive prints from Snapfish so that I can begin scrapping my Jamaica Mission Trip 2010.



One main reason that I wanted to blog was for this to be an outlet for some of my thoughts on God, my walk with Him, and to bring glory to Him through this. This is something that I have never really been good at (writing about God), but I think I'll give it a shot. I am heading to Liberia, Africa in February to do some work for God. Liberia is a small country in Western Africa, and has a population of near 3.3 million. Recently, a 14 year long civil war ended and has decimated the infrastructure of the country. The unemployment rate is over 80%, and more than 65,000 people die each year due to malaria, dysentery, cholera, and hepatitis due to unclean drinking water. To put it into perspective, 1 out of every 4 kids die due simply to the water they are consuming.

As part of this mission, we will be putting in water systems that will provide clean drinking water to the Liberians. These water systems will basically have a large tank (roughly 10,000 gallons) filled with water that will have a basic purification component added to it that will make the water safe to drink. I know that is a very poor description, so for more details be sure to check out www.hope2liberia.org

We will also be putting on a Vacation Bible School for the Liberian children. The last team to go over and do this had nearly 400 children the first day and each day the number grew. For me, personally, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to show children love. In many countries (including Liberia) children often miss out on the types of love that we so often take for granted. Most of the kids that will come to this VBS won't have a clue about Jesus, but will be coming simply because there will be people paying attention to them. It amazes me that just by simply touching a child, hugging them, or looking at them and smiling can honestly be the most exciting thing for them. From what I learned on two trips to Jamaica, these kids don't treasure material items like we would expect. It's just love, affection, and attention that they crave. I am excited to show them that type of love, while at the same time teaching them about the love of Jesus and how much MORE he loves them than anything else. I cannot wait to share Jesus' love, and to give some hugs :)

We will ALSO (yes, also!) be putting on a womens conference. Honestly, I do not know all that this entails, but I know that part of it will be encouraging Liberian women and reminding them that they are more precious than diamonds to God. I can't imagine living my entire life and never hear someone telling me that I am beautiful, that I am smart, or or even that they enjoy being around me. Liberia is not a country that has equal rights, and I don't just mean that women can't get jobs like men can. During the 14 year long civil war, it was not uncommon for women and girls to become victims of rape, trafficking, female genital mutilation, dowry-related violence, and numerous other crimes. I can only imagine what this has left the Liberian women feeling about themselves. I am humbled to have the opportunity to love these women and bring their dark lives light through a hope in Christ.

This is getting a bit lengthy, so I should stop for now. I will be updating regularly with more of what is going on in my exciting life!