the crabby one

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this topic before, but I wanted to hit it again.  I know that a lot of people struggle with this.  My life is spent trying to manage pain.  It dictates what I can do with myself, what my limitations are, and unfortunately my overall mental well-being.  I have to plan for the “what if’s,” even if those things never happen.  I don’t know any other way to be, really.  Ever since I got IBS, which is something that can wreak havoc on your life in ways you can’t imagine, I’ve been forced to have a plan B for every single thing I do.  If we go out to dinner with people, I always want to drive a separate car so that I have an escape route.  It causes inconvenience to everyone else, but it’s the only way I’ll be able to remotely enjoy myself.  That kind of planning and worrying is exhausting.

When I step outside of myself, I think that God has given me all the illness so that I might let go and trust Him and draw near to Him.  Back when I was in high school and going to bible study every week, I had no problem with that.  I knew that God’s plan for me was better than anything I could ever plan for myself.

I read an interesting message by Matthew Kelly, in which he said that there are basically two types of people, those who are engaged in life and those who are disengaged.  The difference between them is simple - the engaged folk have hope: hope that the future will be better than the past or present.

I think that if I truly had that hope where my health was concerned, I would be able to surrender to God’s will wholeheartedly again.  Sure, I’m an optimist at heart and I know that in certain areas of my life, God’s plan always manifests itself in a way that I can appreciate.  But when I’m in the throes of depression or anxiety, I can’t see past the end of my nose to ask God for His help.  I’m stuck in managing the next 60 seconds of my life, because I don’t know any other way to be - that’s the way that I’ve coped so far.

I think the more that I realize these things, the better off I’ll be.  I think that if a person is completely ignorant to who they are and how they act, there might not be much hope of fixing the problems.  Or maybe I’m just crazy.

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John McCain kind of creeps me out.  He looks like a garden gnome, one of those that you can dress up with the pointy hat.  I’ve realized that I hate, no, HATE political speeches.  The melodramatic delivery, the 3 minutes of applause between each sentence.  You really need to watch them with Tivo so that you can bookup though the cheering.  (Bookup = fast forward.  Ooh!  That needs to go in the Grovetionary)

I happened to be watching TV last week when they did the Sarah Palin announcement, and I must say, I got pretty sucked into it.  The best part was the woman off in the distance behind McCain whose jaw dropped to the floor when he finally leaked that his candidate had ovaries.  Ok, he didn’t say it like that, but he might as well have.  It’s kind of like using that voice with little kids when you want to sell them on something - “Look!  It’s got SHINY new WHEELS, Johnny!”

I think it will be a very interesting race.  I look forward to all the debates.  McCain had a lead over Obama, I wonder what the Palin veep choice is going to do to that lead.  Cut into it, I’m sure, but how much?  Will it be enough to draw over all the Hilary holdouts?

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I saw this on a bumper sticker up in Michigan, and giggled for about 15 minutes…

You can get it here.

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I’ve gotten calls, emails and texts asking me if I’ve seen the new cast.  Yes!  Here’s the list:

- Lance Bass (N’Sync) with Lacey Schwimmer (a new pro from So You Think You Can Dance, my new dancing obsession)
- Rocco DiSpirito (chef) with Karina (poor guy doesn’t stand a chance)
- Misty May (V-ball gold medalist) with Maks!  Can’t wait to see this pairing.  They’re my pick to go all the way, because he’s tough, and she’ll listen because she’ll want to win
- Maurice Greene (track star?) with Cheryl Burke
- Toni Braxton (singer) with Alec Mazo (first season winner)
- Kim Kardashian (large-assed reality famewhore) with Mark Ballas (Mark - how could they do this to you?  This is what happens after you get Kristy)
- Cody Linley (Hannah Montana guy?) with Julianne Hough
- Cloris Leachman (she’s 82!) with Mark Ballas’s dad, Corky
- Ted McGinley (everyone’s next door neighbor) with some new dancer chick
- Brooke Burke (party girl/actress) with Derek Hough
- Jeff Ross (the guy from all the celebrity roasts on Comedy Central) with Edyta
- Warren Sapp with Kym Johnson
- Susan Lucci with Tony Dovolani

All in all, I’m excited about the season.  Thoughts?

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Tom & I have come up with a great plan for any games we play that we want to bet on, like golf or… golf.  Maybe bocce ball?  Anyhow, we would always try to come up with something interesting, like getting ice cream or dinner or something like that.  We’ve started a new trend where we bet on the household chores or activities that neither of us wants to do.  The loser has to do whatever it is.  The most recent example was betting on who would have to call our insurance agent to fax a copy of our policy to our homeowners association.  We had been putting it off, and this is a great way to get those pesky tasks done.  Keep that in mind for your next sporting competition/card game/trivia quiz. 

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Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, the three guys who stepped in to finish Heath Ledger’s final movie, have given their paychecks for the film to his daughter.  She was left out of the will because he never had it updated, and while I’m sure she’ll be taken care of by his family, this is an amazing example of humanity at its best.  I never really thought I would say that about movie stars.

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Nowanna - phrase (no-wah-nah): Contraction of sorts for “I don’t want to.”  Used especially in a tired state.

Person 1: (Sleeping on couch.  Warm.  Toasty.  Comfy.)

Person 2: “Come on, let’s go upstairs to bed.”

Person 1: “Nowanna!”

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In case you missed Phelps and the US team winning the gold in the 4×100 freestyle race, you can watch it on NBC’s Olympics site.  It’s the most exciting swimming relay I’ve ever seen.  (By the way, the nbcolympics.com site has a lot of great high definition videos in case you’ve missed some great competitions.

Also, I have the first two sets of photos up from the wedding I shot this weekend - there are photos from the ceremony, and from the beach afterward.  Enjoy!

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I’ve made it through the first week of craziness!  My work schedule was nuts - lots of long days and such.  Friday I unofficially photographed my first wedding.  It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about how to light different situations.  I think that I want to be more of an “available light” photographer than one who uses a lot of flash.  I was able to save a lot of crappy shots because I took all the photos in RAW mode, which gives you more flexibility in editing than JPG files because it’s uncompressed.  Here are the photos I took - they’re in the first four albums.

Today is Tom’s birthday.  We didn’t do anything exciting - I stopped at the Patio and got him ribs, and then we stood outside while the beginnings of a tornado started above our house.  It was seriously the weirdest weather I have ever seen.  It was completely still outside, the sky was greenish, and then this purple cloud started coming at us and got all tall and weird above the house.  We went inside, and then after a little bit they said that strong rotation had formed in our town ten minutes before.  Not everyone can be a brain surgeon.

Only one week to go until I can relax a little bit.  I can’t wait…

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