Leggings as Pants!?

I'm wearing leggings as pants today. I know what you're thinking. "Oh, no. Don't be that girl." I was thinking the same thing, but I was really wanting to be comfortable today, and I think I've made it work. Also, basically the only people who will be seeing me today are a 6, 8, and 10 year old.

What do you think? Yes? No?

Reason #32 to look forward to marriage:

Always having someone around to kill scary bugs.

I took this from a recent post on one of my favorite blogs withoutmelissa.com.

At one point, I was cooking dinner, chatting up a storm with him and he walks over to me, swipes something off my shoulder and opens the back door. I said “What was that? What did you just take off of me? Was it one of those bugs?” to which he replied, “you didn’t even know it was on you, honey. It’s gone now.”

That's the kind of man I want.

The Soundtrack to My Life: The Early Years

I grew up a little unconventionally. My parents were quite young when they got married and still young when my sisters and I came along. While most kids of my era grew up with Barney and Blue's Clues, we got that plus endless hours of MTV2 (which was the channel that actually played music videos on in the '90s) and got ready for school while out parents' massive stereo with a 100 plus disc changer blared.

Mama and Daddy for the most part liked the same music but each had their own distinct tastes. Southern and '70s rock always reminds me of my daddy: Stever Miller Band, Queen, Lynard Skynard, etc. Every time I hear The Allman Brother's Jessica or Ramblin' Man, I'm immediately taken back to riding in Daddy's old black Chevy after picking me up from the bus stop or from dance class, windows down, music loud. Also, System Of A Down's Toxicity has the same effect, but that's a completely different genre.

Mama, on the other hand, is associated with bands like Matchbox 20, The Wallflowers, and she was obsessed with Dave Matthews for a while. They once dropped my sisters and I off at our grandparents' for a weekend and went to Florida to see him. Songs like Crash and Satellite remind me of right around September and October when there's just a taste of fall chill in the air, sitting in the dining room, windows open, and Mama helping me with homework. She also gets the band Live, though those memories are not quite as fond. Once, on a trip to Panama City Beach, she played one of their albums (I'm not sure which one-- I tried to block it out) all the way there AND all the way back. It got old... quickly. Each time I heard the CD restart, I could have sworn a tiny part of my brain exploded.

But, whenever I'm feeling nostalgic, I turn to bands like Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, and Tool, bands they both loved. Tuesday, I raided my mom's Pearl Jam collection. For some reason, her copy of Ten was missing, the album I really wanted (I've been singing Jeremy and Evenflow in my head for weeks). I did get Yield, Riot Act, and Backspacer, which turned out great. I immediately picked Backspacer to listen to first since it came out last year, and I don't know how I've lived until then not having heard Just Breathe. It's so beautiful, and I know its my recent love of Folk that instantly made it my favorite track on the album.

I'll leave you now with a video of the song performed on Austin City Limits. Sometimes, a girl needs to get back to her childhood, and sometimes the best way to do that is with some Classic Alternative Rock to bang her head to.
SDG

She is not afraid of bad news

This was the verse for yesterday's morning entry in Spurgeon's Morning and Evening. In context of the passage, "He" refers to one "who fears the LORD," (vs. 1). It was a slap in the face for me. Here I've been freaking out and whining and moping because things didn't work out exactly the way I wanted. What little faith that shows! I have a loving God who proves His faithfulness time and time again. I've been arrogant and doubtful in forgetting/refusing to believe that fact. After reading that verse yesterday, I decided I should keep it as a reminder to trust God always and wrote it on my wrist.

God, I'm sorry for my lack of faith and trust in You. "I believe; help my unbelief."
SDG

Sunday Night

Bliss.

It's been a while since I've felt this. I'm reading my favorite blogs and halfway through a glass of Moscato. The windows are open. I smell the beginnings of Fall in the air. I can hear the crickets even though Iron & Wine, Nick Drake, and Death Cab play in the background.

Thank you, Lord, for today. Thank you for the wonderful, convicting message this morning. You are a Holy God whom we deserve wrath from, but You sent Your Son instead, so that we may be drawn to You, merited with Christ's righteousness.

Monday

For many of my friends, today probably went something like this:
Get up super early, drive in awful morning traffic, walk a mile to class, sit in boring lectures all day, return home, fulfill social obligations, and do homework to prepare for it all again tomorrow.

My Monday, on the other hand, a Monday of a college graduate, went a little like this:
Roll leisurely out of bed at 10am, eat breakfast, read Classical Apologetics for two hours, go shopping, read aforementioned book in Barnes & Noble for an additional hour and a half or so, eat supper, read fashion blogs, and have an invigorating evening run at the park.

Yeah, I win.

The Ballad of the Goodly Fere

This weekend, I picked up the book Wild At Heart:Discovering the Secrets of a Man's Soul while visiting friends and couldn't put it down. This book describes the heart of the Christian man and why it's designed the way it is. In the book, the author John Eldredge quoted a poem by Ezra Pound that gave me a whole different way of thinking about the kind of a man Christ actually was. Before I leave you readers with the poem, I would like to explain like Eldredge did in the book that "fere" is an Old English term meaning something like "companion" or "mate," so here it is:

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O' ships and the open sea.

When they came wi' a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
"First let these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,
"Or I'll see ye damened," says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
"Why took ye no me when I walked about
Alone in the town?" says he.

Oh we drank his "Hale" in the good red wine
When we last made company.
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o' men was he.

I ha' seen him drive a hundred men
Wi' a bundle o' cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.

They'll no' get him a' in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly,
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha' snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
"I'll go to the feast," quo' our Goodly Fere
"Though I go to the gallows tree."

A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha' seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he.

I ha' seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o' Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi' his eyes like the grey o' the sea,

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi' twey words spoke' suddently

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha' slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.

I ha' seen him eat o' the honey-comb
Sin' they nailed him to the tree.

SDG